Oedipus Fox
by Kitty Gets Loose
Summary: After more than four hundred years of waiting, Shippo finds Kagome again – but she is not the same Kagome who lived and died in the feudal era. Can she be the human mother he lost long ago… or perhaps something more than that to him?
1. Not Her

**Not Her**

He was fully mature now – more than twice the age Inuyasha had been back in the feudal era – but he so often found himself feeling exactly like the child he had been amongst adults five hundred years ago.

Shippo heard Sesshomaru out as he gave them his assessment of the situation. He perfectly understood with his intellect what the taiyoukai was saying, for he was a brilliant young fox demon; but on an emotional level, he could not grasp it.

"I don't understand," he spoke up at last after listening for some time, his emerald-green eyes flashing impatience. "What do you mean she isn't Kagome? I _saw_ her, and scented her – it's Kagome and no one else. We thought long ago that she wouldn't be the same person because of the different timelines we discussed over and over again, but it is her. She's _exactly_ her! We've waited four hundred years, and it's her all over again – except that she hasn't discovered the Bone Eater's well yet."

"It is not her, and she will never discover the portal in the Bone Eater's well," Sesshomaru stated, leaning back against the exquisite fabric of his favourite armchair.

"Shippo," Inuyasha said quietly. "The girl you saw is Kagome, but she's not _our_ Kagome. She never will be."

The half-dog-demon's golden eyes were touched with a sadness that could only be eased, but never erased, by time. That sadness made Shippo's heart ache, for he loved his adoptive father, and hated to see him hurt. They had fought and sniped at each other endlessly in Shippo's childhood and the immaturity of Inuyasha's young adulthood, but mutual affection and respect had been steadily nurtured as both of them grew up in their own ways.

Shippo wanted to stop asking questions to avoid wounding Inuyasha more, but he had badly missed his adoptive human mother since her death more than four hundred years ago, and he wanted her back. So he pursued the matter: "I know that Kagome created two alternate timelines from the moment she fell through the well when she was fifteen, and I get it that the timelines were severed ever since the Shikon Jewel was wished into non-existence and the well closed. But still, I saw her, and I sensed her. It's _her_."

The taiyoukai at the other end of the coffee table looked straight into his eyes, and Shippo realised he was pushing it. At once, he lowered his own eyes out of deference. Sesshomaru was the greatest dog demon alive – indeed, many believed he was the most powerful demon of any species ever to walk the earth. He had protected him and saved his hide more times than Shippo could count, so he deserved all the respect he could yield. But even if he had not been so powerful, Shippo would have respected him all the same, for Sesshomaru was their pack leader. He had been another father to him these few hundred years.

"Shippo," said Sesshomaru in his deep, authoritative voice, tempered now with understanding and patience. "I know it is hard for you to accept that your adoptive mother is lost to us forever. I know you had hoped to see her again by waiting until we reached the era to which she originally belonged. Indeed, you _would_ have seen a very close version of her again if she had not wished that the Shikon Jewel had never existed. Because then, the jewel would have been born all over again inside her body in this age, and she would have travelled through the portal of the Bone Eater's well on her fifteenth birthday, and she would know us once again from the past. But because she made the unselfish – and correct – wish of ending the jewel's existence, the Shikon Jewel is gone forever from all ages and eras, and will never return. Therefore, the timelines she was able to connect by travelling through the well have been severed. This Kagome you have just seen was never born with the Shikon Jewel inside her; she never can and never will travel through any portal in the well, for no such portal is accessible now; she may indeed be the reincarnation of the priestess Kikyo or of the first Kagome, but she is not _our_ Kagome. Our Kagome left her own time to live in ours, and she died in our time. This one we have just seen is a different girl, from the linear timeline we have just lived five hundred years of. She may have the same DNA, possibly even the same priestess' powers, but she won't ever leap through wells and meet Inuyasha in another time. She doesn't know us; she doesn't know you."

"I'd hoped to see her again too, Shippo," Inuyasha said. "I missed her so much for so long, and I still love her. I waited and watched for her birth in this age. I wanted to see if the Shikon-no-Tama was really gone forever. I learnt that it really was. The girl-child born nearly fifteen years ago had no jewel inside her. She's Kagome, but not ours. She never knew, doesn't know, and never will know anything of who and what we are, or what her previous incarnation meant to us all."

"You've been keeping an eye on her for _fifteen years_ and you never told me?" Shippo asked, startled, a little angry. "Why didn't you tell me that? I thought you'd only just found her recently..."

"We didn't tell you because we knew that you would want to rush in and try to turn her into who she isn't," Sesshomaru said.

"That's the reason, Shippo," Inuyasha added. "_This_ girl shouldn't be dragged into our complicated lives."

"Would you be saying what you're saying if you hadn't found love with another demon?" Shippo asked, looking at his two adoptive fathers.

Shippo asked the question so earnestly that Inuyasha could not get upset with him. The half-demon only ached on behalf of his fox-child, who had never settled on a suitable mate for himself.

"Having a demon mate I love and who loves me has given me more strength than I could have hoped for since Kagome passed away," Inuyasha replied honestly. "But if I knew that this Kagome was _my_ Kagome, I would not hesitate to be with her all over again. And I'm not afraid to say that in front of Sesshomaru, because he understands where I'm coming from. She isn't mine, however. She's just a different person with the same face and the same scent. I'm not going to make her acquaintance and try to turn her into our Kagome, only to lose her all over again in a few decades' time."

Shippo nodded, stood up and excused himself as he felt sudden tears prickling at his eyes. He was fully grown-up now; crying like a child was foolish. But he couldn't help it. The pain came rushing back as he remembered himself as a little kit, crying oceans of tears as the Kagome he had known finally faded into death after a long, fruitful and happy life, leaving behind children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, a devastated half-demon mate, a village that loved her – and a broken-hearted little fox demon who was losing his mother, friend and comrade all in one.

As he dropped with a sigh into bed that night and pulled the covers over his body, he thought of how he had never really known his birth mother, for she had been killed by enemies of his fox-demon tribe when he was only an infant. His father had raised him alone until his death at the hands of the Thunder Brothers, whom Inuyasha had later slain.

The priestess Kaede had been a grandmotherly figure to him; the taijiya Sango had been like an aunt; Sesshomaru's adopted human daughter, Rin, when she was grown, had also played a maternal role in his life. But Kagome was the only true mother he had ever known, the one who had protected and loved him through a critical period in his formative years, and he would never get her back now. Cruelly enough, she was there, but not there, because the girl he had seen after four hundred years of waiting was her, and not her.

* * *

**Note:** Yes, this is another one of my stories where Sesshomaru and Inuyasha are a mated couple – but as they do in Wolf At Her Door, they keep mostly to the background, leaving the front of the stage to other characters. This story belongs to an adult Shippo and a young Kagome.


	2. All Grown Up

**All Grown Up**

"It isn't _that_ difficult," Shippo said, leaning back in his chair in his home-office, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose out of sheer exasperation as he repeated his instructions over the secured phone line to the badger demon.

These badgers who were employed as his trainees were extremely loyal to him. They were very dedicated. They could even be as cunning as foxes. But sometimes, just _sometimes_, they were maddeningly slow on the uptake.

"Koga has confirmed that the date of death of his current identity should be this Saturday," Shippo sighed. "So why do I see you trying to alter the official records _now?_ You'll have to wait till Saturday to key him in as dead. He already has his next identity, which I created twenty-eight years ago – you do have the file, don't you? He's been partially using that newer identity for some time now, so you don't have to resurrect him after you kill him in the system, do you understand? Good. Just wait for _Saturday_ before we create the death certificates and terminate his present primary alias. Why am I even telling you all this again, Kuromatsu?"

Shippo ended the call and muttered under his breath before he returned to monitoring the half-digital, half-magical computer system that he had invented to make it possible for demons like himself to integrate smoothly into modern human society.

Unlike human-style computer hacking, which left trails wherever it was done, his magical system was seamless and traceless. It enabled him to enter any computer-based system he wanted without being observed or recorded, officially terminate a demon's chosen persona at about the time when a normal human lifespan would be expected to end, and give him or her an official new existence in every other system that would process such details.

He even saw to the magically perfect forging of all necessary paper documents to establish a brand-new identity, complete with fake medical history, blood-typing and dental records. It was also part of his job to ensure that any demon in their extended pack who was careless enough to be arrested by the authorities or admitted to hospital was rescued immediately by Koga's team with military precision, memories of their existence wiped out from human witnesses by clever spells, and the demon's DNA records erased cleanly from all systems.

They had learnt with time and scientific research that at first glance, the DNA of a demon in human form did not look different from the DNA of a regular mortal. It would not draw immediate attention. However, it was still essential for them to expunge all their DNA records from every place that held them, because they did not want someone entering some new sample into a database two hundred years from now and coming up with a match to an older sample from a point so far back in time as to be impossible for any human lifespan to cover.

They did all that hacking, forging and erasing without anyone ever knowing. It wouldn't matter if someone hired the best information technology experts to look for things that didn't fit, or records that had been altered, or signs of their systems being broken into. Magic simply didn't leave digital footprints, and _his_ magic was the cleverest and cleanest of any demon's he knew.

Thanks to his competence, his flawless inventions, and the secrecy and loyalty of their pack, they had been able not only to survive, but to _thrive_. The wealth they accumulated from age to age was passed down from one identity to the next, and Sesshomaru was now the head of a sprawling business empire. All of them owned indecent quantities of land all over the world, and all of their assumed identities were, to some extent, famous in the human world for their reclusiveness and secrecy – Sesshomaru in particular was known for delegating his work to his subordinates, running the show from home, and rarely being photographed in public. Still, to be safe, they all wore spelled disguises unique to each alias so that no smart-aleck human a hundred years from now would notice that "Grandson Sesshomaru" looked identical to "Granddaddy Sesshomaru's pictures from way back in the last century".

It was all thanks to Kagome. Kagome with her foresight, Kagome with her warnings about the dangers of the future, Kagome with her detailed explanations of how humans would overrun the earth in no time at all, and invent remarkable machines. She had told them how records would not remain mere physical records for long, but would soon be entered into digital systems that could proliferate wildly at the touch of a button, be instantly communicated from one corner of the world to another, and be impossible to change without being caught for it sooner or later.

Shippo had listened to her over the years, not understanding much at the time, but storing everything in his mind. Even as a child, he had been determined to work things out so that even when his adoptive mother passed away, she would be at peace – because he, Shippo, would learn how to use his magic to keep all the demons she loved safe, forever.

He had done it. He was keeping them all secure, and helping them to retain the resources they had rightfully earned or inherited.

"Thank you, Kagome," he whispered to himself, and to her spirit… but was that spirit reborn in this new Kagome somehow? Would that girl on the other side of the city hear his thoughts and wonder where they were coming from?

Best not to think about it.

Shippo monitored the system for a while more to be sure that his team was making all the right moves before he felt it was safe enough to leave them to it.

"Don't do ANYTHING I wouldn't," was the final instant message he sent over to his team before he logged out.

He stretched his work-stiff limbs and headed off to the bathroom which was attached to his huge bedroom. He was the only child in the family who still had a permanent bedroom in their fathers' home. The surviving children of mostly demon blood that Sesshomaru and Inuyasha had biologically fathered had lived with them for some time, but when they matured and started courting the demons or humans who became their mates, they had moved out into homes of their own with their children and grandchildren.

Some branches of the family remained very close, still living in Tokyo and visiting often; other branches which had completely abandoned their demon heritage and chosen the human way seemed to be lost to them.

Shippo had thought about moving out of his fathers' house a number of times over the years. After all, he had a lot of property of his own throughout Japan and in a few other lands. But because he had fought beside the older generation in their battle to rid the world of the Shikon Jewel, he knew his fathers in a way that the other children did not, and he preferred to live with them. Anyway, it was a big enough mansion for them not to get into one another's hair. They got along fine. There was nothing to drive him away, and everything to keep him here.

He stood under the hot shower, drenching his luxuriant crop of red hair. He then realised that he was still in human shape, and instantly neutralised the spell he had worn since leaving the house this morning to run his errands. At once, his brushy fox tail sprang out, his hair turned redder and his eyes greener, his ears grew pointed, and his fangs and claws showed themselves again. He had not quite reached the level of development that Sesshomaru had attained – the taiyoukai in his two-legged form had never displayed a tail, whereas his own waved proudly from above his bottom.

He recalled how Kagome had shampooed his tail with her concoctions from the future whenever she bathed him... at least until she came over to live with them permanently, and no longer had access to the things she had once used. She had then done her best with what was available to her in the feudal era to take care of his grooming needs. She saw to all that a mother ought to, cleaning his ears thoroughly, washing his hair and tail, and brushing everything till it shone.

He smiled to himself as he shampooed his own tail and hair, remembering those old times. She had been so feisty, that girl – and so gentle at the same time, except when she lost her temper. But even when she was angry, she never took it out on the children. Shippo was certain that she had never pulled his tail or snagged his hair with her fingernails while bathing him. In any event, she had blown her top less and less often as she matured, and had only "sat" Inuyasha once after moving to the feudal era for good.

She had stopped bathing Shippo when he grew to be about the same size as a six-year-old human child.

"I think you can manage on your own now," Kagome had said to him one day, handing him his wash-rag and the salt-and-herb cleansing mixture for his bath. "You're getting big enough to wash yourself, and you'd better start now, because you'll be frozen at this size for quite some time even after I'm gone."

He had looked at her physical appearance – really _looked_ at her lines and wrinkles then – and realised with a shock that she was an old woman. She had always been Kagome to him, and he had barely noticed her changing appearance from year to year. But he saw her that day, a sixty-nine-year-old human lady, still slim and elegant but aching with age, and his heart broke.

"Kagome..." he had begun in a whisper, not really knowing what he would say next.

But she had smiled her brilliant, beautiful smile – she still had all her teeth, for she had always been diligent about keeping them clean – and at once, it seemed to him that the signs of age vanished before his eyes, and he saw her as his young mother again. "Go on with you – quickly now, before your younger brothers and sister, and your nephews and nieces, come back from the forest to muddy up the entire bathtub!" she had told him, ushering him into the bath house before turning away to wait for the return of her little hanyou children, who would lose their mother long before they were ready to part from her.

Only one of her offspring with Inuyasha, a boy, had been born mostly human, and had matured quickly enough to marry a village girl and father a troupe of children, one of whom even gave him grandchildren, before Kagome died.

Shippo shook his head under the shower as he came back from his mental trip into the past. He sighed, checked that he was clean of bath gel and shampoo, and turned off the flow of hot water. As he stepped out of the shower, his mobile phone started ringing out in the bedroom, so he grabbed a towel and strode into the room, rubbing his scalp briskly to dry his hair.

"Yes?" he answered the call, and found that it was the badger demon again. "No, leave Kanta's file alone for now. He did consider creating a new identity that would seem to be his present persona's grandson, but he is rethinking that, so wait till he gets back to me. Right. Bye."

As he flipped his phone shut and continued towelling his hair, he suddenly noticed that Sesshomaru was standing in the open doorway, watching him.

Shippo was embarrassed to find himself standing naked in front of his senior adoptive father and pack leader, wearing nothing but a white towel tangled in his head hair. Damn all these clever spells, which largely concealed their demon auras and scents even from one another in these times. He hoped he wasn't blushing as he lowered the towel in as un-panicked a manner as he could manage, to shield his more private parts.

"Otou-sama," he said, self-conscious under the taiyoukai's gaze. Sesshomaru had for the last four hundred and ninety years permitted him to address him as he would a real sire, rather than as "Youfu", the more commonly used term for adoptive fathers.

The dog demon assessed his adopted son's youthful, muscular body, very well formed after centuries of good care from his pack elders, and strict combat training under his and Inuyasha's watchful eyes. The fox-boy had turned out taller than he had thought he would, stronger than expected, and more beautiful than his stocky childhood form had predicted. From the time he had turned 300, he had looked much like a strikingly attractive 25-year-old human male would, and he would probably look very much the same way for at least another two hundred years.

"You've grown up," Sesshomaru stated matter-of-factly, eyeing him objectively, the way a martial-arts trainer might eye his charge.

Shippo wondered for one crazy, fleeting half-second if the taiyoukai was making a pass at him, before slapping that thought out of his head. To the best of his knowledge, Sesshomaru was perfectly faithful to Inuyasha, and had all these centuries looked upon him, Shippo, as no more and no less than his adopted child.

So he simply responded: "Have I, Otou-sama?"

"Yes, you have," Sesshomaru said frankly. "You've been old enough for quite a long time now to decide what to do with your life. Inuyasha and I discussed it last night. If you want to approach the girl, we will let that be your decision. But it would only be fair to warn you that you could be setting yourself up for more pain. She isn't your mother, and she won't know you."

"I understand," Shippo said softly.

Shippo stood tall and calm as Sesshomaru's golden eyes sized him up one more time, before the ever-imposing taiyoukai turned away from the door and went back up the corridor towards his own bedroom.

The fox demon wrapped the bath towel around his waist, quietly shut his bedroom door, and sat down on the edge of his bed to think about the situation.

So his fathers were giving him the green light to get to know this Kagome.

She wasn't her.

She was someone else.

But perhaps the someone else she was would be every bit as worth meeting as the Kagome they had all lost?


	3. Never The Twain Shall Meet

**Never The Twain Shall Meet**

"How are you, my friend?" Koga greeted Shippo with a relatively civilised slap on the back. The wolf demon had been known to show affection in far more violent ways in the past, but had greatly toned down his body language in the last century.

Still, Shippo felt his insides jarred and jolted most unpleasantly. "Hey – are you greeting a friend or an enemy?" he demanded, glaring at the wolf. He suddenly felt a bit like the runt he had once been for so long, constantly getting pounded by a hot-tempered Inuyasha who was himself very much a child.

"Come on – you're big enough now for me to smack around a bit without doing too much damage," Koga laughed good-naturedly.

"You and Inuyasha always did believe in letting your fists do the talking," Shippo muttered.

"And you were always up to your tricks and talking your way out of things – I think you spent too much time with that monk all those years back."

Shippo did not think of Miroku all the time, but whenever the incorrigibly flirtatious, smooth-talking, con-artist of a man came to mind, he would be gripped by a mixture of amusement at all the good memories of him, and sorrow at the reminder that he had been pure human after all and was long dead, his remains committed to a holy fire, then to the earth, several years before Kagome's passing.

"So – how are you doing?" Koga repeated his question, while letting a tiny bit of his concealed youki flare for just a second. It was evidence that he was who he was under the human disguise – a necessary habit all the demons in their circle had developed over time.

"Good. And you?" Shippo asked, as he looked into the familiar blue eyes, their otherworldly depths spelled now to look like normal blue human irises, under a short but bushy head of black hair. He released a little of his own youki likewise.

"No different, and that's a good thing," Koga said, "So much keeps changing around us, we need some things to remain the same, even if it's ourselves."

They entered the cafe that was a regular meeting place outside of one another's homes for members of their extended pack.

"No new adventures?" the fox asked.

"Of course not," said the wolf, taking his seat at his favourite table. "The old ones were more than enough to last me a lifetime."

Koga had not chosen another mate since he had lost his first and last some three hundred and fifty years ago. She had been a fully human granddaughter of Rin and Kohaku, the very image of her grandmother in her youth. Sesshomaru, silently grieving the loss of Rin to age and an incurable illness, had doted on this child who turned out to be so much like her, giving her nearly as much attention as he did his blood relations. As she had been born after Rin's death, Shippo suspected that Sesshomaru wanted to think she was his human daughter reincarnated – although those knowledgeable about such matters had determined that it was unlikely.

When the girl grew up and took a liking to the wolf-demon family friend who had always been part of her life, Sesshomaru had nearly bitten Koga's head off. But he had come around and consented to his great-granddaughter becoming the wolf's mate, and she had given Koga strong half-demon children who continued to spice up their father's life to the present day. Sesshomaru too was glad for them (although he would never say so directly to Koga), as their existence meant that in some way, something of Rin had become part-demon through the most natural of means.

All his friends knew that Koga deeply missed the old days, when he'd had the freedom to run wild and boldly proclaim his identity to whoever cared to ask. But his hanyou children, the more forward-looking members of his wolf pack, his inuyoukai in-laws and other friends had dragged him kicking into the modern age, and he was coping as well as could be expected.

Koga ordered a rare steak and still water with ice, while Shippo asked for chicken kebabs and a coffee, which the wolf demon shook his head at when the dark beverage was served to the fox.

"You always took to new things so much faster than the rest of us – you and mutt-face both – but it was understandable for him, as he'd actually visited Kagome in her time from way back when. You never went through that portal, did you?"

"No one could apart from Kagome and Inuyasha. It was closed for good even to them after Kagome came over to live. As a matter of fact, Kagome is the reason I wanted to see you today."

"Oh?" Koga asked, taking a sip of water. "Have you seen her? The other her, I mean."

"Yes. A week ago. She looks exactly like her."

"That she does."

"You've seen her too?" Shippo growled. "Why has _everyone_ seen her years before me?"

"Inuyasha alerted me to her existence a few years back. He said the girl was her but not her, and he wasn't about to turn her into his mate, cos in some convoluted way, she's become his descendant. But he said that I ought to know, considering that he and I were rivals for her five hundred years ago."

"And?" Shippo demanded.

"I stole a look at her. It damn near broke my heart to see her all over again, so happy and full of life. But I didn't go near her. She wasn't meant for me before, and she isn't meant for me a second time round. I still love the mate I lost, every day I wake up, you know. Besides, this girl's not Kagome. I imagine that even if she were, she'd probably just fall in love with Inuyasha all over again – they were fated to be together."

"Inuyasha tells me she's not her," Shippo stated. "If anyone would know, _he_ would."

"He would. So what did you want to ask me about her?"

"You've already clarified matters for me," Shippo admitted. "To be plain, I just wanted to know if you would stake a claim on her. You've said no, so I have my answer."

"Why would you want to know whether I would stake a claim on her or not?" Koga asked, a twinkle in his sky-blue gaze.

"Just curious."

"Bullshit."

"I'm really just curious."

"Sure, fox-boy. And I was born last century."

...

Two days after his meeting with Koga, Shippo decided that taking a closer look would do no harm.

He took a long walk across Tokyo and concealed himself amongst the trees surrounding the Higurashi shrine, watching Kagome's mother sweeping the courtyard between the Bone Eater's well and the Goshinboku tree. Looking at the woman's kind face, he felt happy for her. _This_ Mrs Higurashi would never have to lose her daughter forever to the past, a past that would never catch up with her present.

Inuyasha was the only one of their pack who had met the mother, grandfather and younger brother of _their_ Kagome. After Kagome left her family for good to live with them, Inuyasha had from time to time wondered how they were getting along without her. It was rather mind-twisting to have to think that somewhere in the lost thread of time severed for good by the disappearance of the Shikon Jewel, another Mrs Higurashi had let her Kagome go through the well, never to return to her. That mother had probably lived and died never knowing for certain what had happened to her daughter.

Shippo, with the best understanding he could acquire of how time-travel worked, had guessed that some of the things his Kagome had done while in the feudal era would have reached her family somehow. After all, he remembered Kagome reporting how her mother, grandfather and brother had told her that at the same time she was trapped inside the meidou by Naraku, and the Bone Eater's well had vanished in the feudal age, the well had also disappeared before the eyes of her horrified family in the future.

Therefore, _some_ things done in the past could reach the future. Kagome had occasionally etched brief messages on the wood of the well in the hope that they would appear instantly on the well in her family's time, and be seen by the loved ones she had left behind. In her old age, and after her death, her demon friends had kept the etchings preserved out of love and affection for her memory, so that they would survive through time. Unfortunately, none of them ever knew if such an act would or would not improve the chances of her family finding and reading them.

Even now, they had no way of knowing if the mother, grandmother and brother she had left behind had ever read the messages, because just as time moved forward for them, time had also moved forward along a parallel path for the family which had said goodbye to its beloved Kagome. There was no means of bridging, in person, that parallel path other than through the Bone Eater's well. The well had never worked again after Kagome went through it one last time to become Inuyasha's wife and mate.

The linear path along which their demon and half-demon pack had travelled into this present future they were in remained parallel forever to that alternate stream of time. Somewhere in that other stream, Mrs Higurashi had grown old without her daughter beside her, Grandpa Higurashi had died without ever seeing his beloved granddaughter again, and Sota had grown up missing his sister every day of his life. Awkward excuses would have been given about Kagome's disappearance. The girl would have been untraceable forever. Friends who were told that Kagome had got married and gone to live in another country would have asked for her new address, or how they could e-mail her, and would have found no satisfaction in the answers given to them. Perhaps someone who received one too many evasive replies from her family might have called the authorities to report the matter. The Higurashis would have faced a good deal of trouble, and no one would have been able to span the gap of time to help them.

_This_ Higurashi family, however, would face no such problems. Their daughter, granddaughter and sister remained with them, and her life and death would be accounted for in this timeline.

Although Kagome had known that the family that was to come in this timeline would not truly be the family she had grown up with, she had still chosen to leave documents for them that would help them establish this shrine in modern times. Her gravestone had had her first name etched boldly on it, an instruction she had given in the hope that the family of the future that came to occupy this part of Tokyo would see it and think it a good name for a daughter they might have.

"Wouldn't it be nice if whoever is born in the time to come that is equivalent to the time I left could also bear my name? That is, if she is anything like me!" she had said, not long before her death.

Her demon friends and her own part-demon descendants, some of whom had married the descendants of Miroku and Sango, Kohaku and Rin, had all loyally protected the things she wished to leave to the shrine, so that when the Higurashi family came to own the shrine in the future, they would have relics and artefacts and antiques handed down to them.

By keeping an eye on the generations of people descended from Kagome, half of whom married humans and watered down their demon blood to almost nothing, their pack had learnt that Kagome had in fact become an ancestor to the Higurashis and to the present-day Kagome. This had not been the case in her _original_ family – she had certainly not been her own ancestor! But she and Inuyasha were definitely forebears of _this_ clan.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, depending on how Shippo looked at it, these Higurashis did not know their own demon origins.

That ignorance was hatched as a result of one of Inuyasha's and Kagome's almost completely human great-great-granddaughters severing ties with her kin one day, announcing that she had fallen in love with a priest who disapproved of anything associated with demons. They were never to see her again, she said, and she would deny all affiliation with demons and part-demons from that moment on. She had left the town they lived in at the time, and they had respected her wishes and left her alone.

It was that determined girl, Michi, from whom the present Higurashi family came, many generations later. Shippo had thought that Inuyasha had merely watched over these human descendants of his from afar. But now he knew that the hanyou had been keeping a much closer eye on them.

Inuyasha had admitted to Shippo in a quiet moment after their discussion about why this Kagome was not their Kagome, that he had often secretly observed this Higurashi family – not only during the past fifteen years but longer than that – and could discern few differences between them and the family he had known in the past. Mrs Higurashi was as kind as her alternate-timeline counterpart had been; her husband had also died of cancer when Sota was only a baby; Sota was just as good-natured and sensible; and Grandfather Higurashi was as ineffective a priest as the other had been – except that now, he had a valid reason for not being a good priest, as unbeknownst to him, he had minute traces of demon blood in his veins!

Shippo looked at the calm, peaceful look on Mrs Higurashi's face now, and wished that _his_ Kagome could be here to see this. She had missed her mother so very much at times.

At that very moment, the fifteen-year-old Kagome skipped up the stairs from the street to the shrine after coming home from school, and greeted her mother cheerfully: "Mama!"

"Kagome! How was school today?" her mother asked.

"I seem to be coping fine so far! It helps to be in the same class as Eri, Yuka and Ayumi – we push one another on. I hope this will be a good year."

"I am sure it will be a good year for you," Mrs Higurashi smiled. "Go on inside and have something to eat – I bought your favourite cakes from the bakery while you were at school."

"Thank you, Mama!" the girl chirped merrily, hugging her mother before entering the house.

Shippo's naturally foxy mischievousness and the powerful urge to recreate Kagome as he had first known her struggled against the maturity and levels of common sense that he had slowly built over the centuries. He wanted to spring out at her, laughing, perhaps snatch her books from her the way he had first stolen her jewel shards; he wanted to astonish her with a burst of fox fire, to see if it would awaken in her a memory of another life; he wanted... he wanted so much that was impossible.

Eventually, his hard-earned common sense – and the cautionary advice of his fathers and Koga – won the battle.

He smiled to himself. He wished the girl a good year, just like her mother did. It would probably be a better year for her, whatever else might happen, if he did _not_ let himself into her life. Although his fathers had given him permission to proceed, and Koga had blessed whatever he chose to do, he decided that they were right to say that their lives were too complicated to drag this innocent girl into.

He turned quickly away from the shrine and slipped easily through the thin rows of trees – so different from the thickly forested area this had been hundreds of years ago when he had last lived here, leaving the teenager to her happy life with her family and school friends.


	4. All Too Human

**All Too Human**

"Hojo, thanks for a great day out," Kagome smiled as she stopped at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the shrine.

Hojo looked as if he would very much like to climb those stairs with her and spend a little more time with her in her family home, but she quickly moved away from him and waved goodbye. Respecting her unspoken wishes, he waved back and watched her longingly as she scaled the stone steps.

Kagome could feel his eyes on her back as she moved further and further away from him. At the top of the stairs, she stopped and turned to check if he was still waiting there at the bottom, and of course he was. She waved again and disappeared.

Once she was out of his sight, she breathed a little easier. He was the most kind and caring boy, and very nice looking too. Girls everywhere admired him. But he had been courting her for three years, and obviously wanted so much more than she felt she could give. They were both eighteen now, and had just enrolled in the University of Tokyo a couple of months ago. Gaining admission to that prestigious university had been relatively easy for them, as they had always been excellent at their studies – another reason why all their friends thought they made such a great couple.

She knew Hojo was hoping for a clear sign that she would be the "serious girlfriend" he could introduce to his parents as their prospective daughter-in-law, but that was hardly what she wanted.

"Won't it be good once we've graduated from university?" he had said to her only this afternoon, when they had spent the precious few hours of freedom from projects and assignments that a Sunday could offer them. "I know it's hard to find jobs at this time, but maybe things will be better when our turn comes? We can do our best to look for proper work then, and lead our own lives instead of having to study and study all the time. Although my parents would prefer me to continue living with them, I think I would like to look for an apartment just outside the city – would you like that kind of arrangement?"

It was one of many things he had said to her over the past year, especially when they were graduating from high school, which hinted that he wanted his plans for the future to feature her prominently.

Today, just after the movie, when he had alluded to her preferences regarding living arrangements, she had laughed lightly and replied: "Wow, you're thinking very far ahead, Hojo. I'm still very happy to be living with Mama and Grandpa – I really haven't considered the idea of living anywhere else."

But of course she had considered moving out. Of course she had thought about living far away. So far away that nothing could span the space between her old life and what was to come. Where had such ideas come from? She often wondered about that. Where exactly did she want to live? What did she want to do, or be? When had she become so dissatisfied with her existence while pretending that she was delighted with the way things had always been?

As Kagome entered the courtyard of the shrine, she felt the strange pull she had felt from the Goshinboku tree and the Bone Eater's Well for the last three years. She didn't know why she felt drawn to these things, which had always been there throughout her life – she had barely taken notice of them while she was growing up. She only knew that of late, she would often find herself staring blankly up at the massive tree and down into the ancient well, looking for something she could not identify.

Sometimes, she wondered what happened to the girl she had once been.

Up until the age of fifteen, she had been a cheerful person, happy and optimistic, looking ahead to a future that showed her nothing but bright and promising horizons. But after her fifteenth birthday, something strange had happened deep inside her soul. She had grown haunted by the disturbing feeling that something vital was missing from her life. She had no idea what it was, but the feeling would not leave her.

The closest explanation she could craft to account for the odd feeling was that some strange fate meant for her had somehow bypassed her, and it was fleeing further and further away from her as time passed, calling out to her as it receded into the distance. But she did not know what it was, or where it was, or how to grasp it.

When Hojo had first taken a romantic interest in her in their final year of middle school, it had only made her realise all the more that something crucial she wanted was not within her reach.

She stood under the tree now, gazing up at its mighty trunk, which was marked by mysterious old scars which surely hailed from long before the time of anyone still alive. She looked right up into its mysterious canopy of green leaves casting a calming shade which felt like the benevolent shadow of another world. Something was right there at the edges of her consciousness, just beyond her vision, just beyond her fingertips… something she couldn't name.

Frustrated, she shook her head to clear her mind.

"What am I supposed to do?" she whispered to the tree, feeling a little foolish, for she had never spoken to it before.

The wind whispered an answer through the rustling leaves and twigs, but it spoke in a language she could not understand, and the answer was lost to her.

"Kagome? Are you home?" she heard her mother's voice from inside the house.

"Yes, Mama!" she called out, walking away from the tree and heading for the house, where she slid the front door open and stepped into the hallway. "I'm back."

"I thought it was you," her mother smiled cheerfully as she stepped into the kitchen. "How was the movie?"

"Oh, it was all right," she sighed, slipping into her usual seat at the kitchen table.

"And Hojo?" Mrs Higurashi asked.

"He's fine."

"Why didn't he come in?"

"He wanted to, but I was tired, Mama. I just wanted to come home and rest."

"Are you feeling unwell? You can't be used to university life yet… I must ask your grandfather to prepare some of his best tonics…"

"Ohhhh no, Mama – no tonics, please," Kagome protested, wide-eyed. "I swear he puts dinosaur bones into those pots! They taste terrible! I promise you I'm fine. I just feel tired around Hojo sometimes – he's so nice and earnest, and I feel so sorry for him…"

Her mother looked at her so kindly just as she spoke the last bit that Kagome knew there was no use hiding it from her.

"I didn't mean for that to come out, but I really do feel sorry for him more than I feel anything else," the girl admitted.

"I know," Mrs Higurashi said.

"You do?"

"Of course I do. I'm your mother."

"You like Hojo, though, don't you?" Kagome asked curiously.

"I like him _very_ much. I think he is the kind of decent young man who will grow up to treat his wife well and be a loving father to his children. I think he is a hardworking and honest boy, and I know he cares a great deal for you. If you were to marry him, I would feel assured that you would have a safe and good life. But if that is not what you want, then it is not what I want for you."

"It _should_ be what I want!" Kagome cried softly, shocked to feel the tears starting into her eyes, for she had not thought that she felt this emotional about the matter. "It was just the kind of fairy tale I always wanted when I was a child, but I don't want it any more. The problem is that I don't know what I want… I don't know. What should I do?"

"Maybe it's time to stop thinking about what you should do, or what Hojo wants, or what I hope for, or what the world wants you to become. Maybe it is time to be still and quiet and look inside, to discover what it is that calls out to you."

It was almost as if her mother knew that something had been whispering messages to her that she could not understand. "What do you mean, Mama…?" she asked, wondering if she had read her mind.

Mrs Higurashi hugged her and said: "Do you know where your name comes from, Kagome?"

"You always told me it was the name of one of Papa's ancestors."

"Yes. Four to five hundred years ago, a Shinto priestess named Kagome lived in this part of Japan – possibly right where we live now. Her gravestone amongst the trees, near where the ancient village used to stand, still bears her name. She left a few writings, some of which survived to be copied down and passed on through the generations. One fragment of her writings – no one knows if it was part of a letter or a diary – recorded the words I just repeated to you about being still and quiet and looking inside to learn what calls out to you."

"Really? She wrote that?"

"Yes. That Kagome was a remarkable woman, from what family history tells us. She was said to have been so wise that she could see the future, highly educated, powerful and compassionate, a master archer and a great healer. It is said that she taught the people under her care many important things that stood her community in good stead over the centuries – do you know, there's even a rumour that she warned her descendants to stay away from Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War that was to come hundreds of years after her death? She seems to have been very unusual. Priestesses these days can easily marry, but back then, Shinto miko couldn't. However, _she_ married and had children and grandchildren, yet remained a pure and powerful priestess. The old legend goes that the man she married wasn't fully human. Of course it's just a legend – your grandfather is her great-great-great and I don't know how many 'greats' grandson, and he seems perfectly human to me! All _too_ human, in fact!"

Kagome wiped her tears away and giggled to hear her mother – who was always so kind and respectful – speak thus about her father-in-law.

"Your father and I named you after her, because when you were born, you looked so bright and good-natured and capable that we felt you were destined for great things. That was why we gave you the name of such an illustrious ancestor. And perhaps, like what the legends say of her, you shouldn't marry a man who is all too human to you."

"Oh, I don't know. Hojo is so sweet-natured that I wonder if he _is_ fully human – sometimes I think he's a _saint_," Kagome sighed.

"Perhaps. But when you look at him, do you see a mere mortal?" Mrs Higurashi asked playfully.

"Yeah."

"Then maybe he is too human for you."

Kagome smiled and felt much better as she tucked into the hot, clear, gingery sweet potato soup her mother set down before her on the kitchen table.

...

Late that evening, she opened her bedroom window and looked into the warm spring night, which promised that summer would be here soon. She could see the lights of the city beyond the elevated ground on which their home and the shrine were built. But she was distracted from the bright lights by an odd sense that somewhere to her right – where her eyes could only just make out the wellhouse and the fence around the Goshinboku tree – someone was watching her.

She even thought she saw a shadow in the darkness.

It couldn't be. The shrine closed by about six pm every day, except on special occasions when night-time ceremonies were called for. It was true, however, that security was not exactly tight around the grounds, and there was little to stop trespassers from jumping over the low fences and gates – although such a thing had never happened before, as far as she was aware. Fortunately, the house itself was reasonably secure, provided one did not leave a window open at night.

Kagome quickly slid her window shut, closed and latched it, and reached toward her desk to switch off the light she had been studying by, so that she would be less visible to whoever was out there. She continued looking through the glass in the direction of the wellhouse and tree. It seemed that something _was_ there in the shadows cast by the great tree. But as she gazed hard at it, willing it to move and show itself more clearly, she gradually felt a curious sense of calmness and peace, until she actually found herself smiling gently in the dark.

It was the oddest thing, but she had a peculiar sensation of being watched over, rather than watched.

Perhaps it was her imagination, but as the shadow seemingly merged with the deepest shades of night and disappeared, she thought she saw a twin-flash of beautiful colour – like a pair of emerald green eyes winking at her before they vanished into the darkness.


	5. Not Quite Human

**Not Quite Human**

Through sheer willpower, Shippo had successfully left Kagome in peace for three years. He only dropped by the shrine once in a while by night, during quieter hours of the day, or strolled casually along streets she used to get to and from home, to catch brief glimpses of her.

One night last week, he thought she might have glimpsed his figure near the Goshinboku tree. He didn't think her eyes would be able to make him out, but she had apparently sensed him somehow, and had shut her window. In the darkness, his demon eyes could see that she was calm, not afraid. Not wanting that serenity to turn to nervousness, he had quietly left, hoping she would think her eyes were playing tricks on her.

Never once did he allow her to see him clearly, especially in the daytime. At present, he used a human disguise that echoed the natural reddish colouring of his hair and the green of his eyes. Although both the red and the green were toned down by the disguise, and Tokyo was much more cosmopolitan these days than in earlier eras, he still stood out in a crowd. He didn't want her to notice him, because he suspected that once they came face to face with each other and locked eyes, he wouldn't be able to look away. If he caved in and entered her world, her life wouldn't be so normal or peaceful any more, would it?

Today was one of those days when he found his feet pointing in the direction of the shrine, carrying him irresistibly towards this new Kagome who was so similar to the first that it was all he could do not to rush over to her and ask how she was doing. He moved silently through the trees again, towards the courtyard of the shrine, only to realise that he was getting Kagome's scent from the direction of the long flight of stone steps beneath the torii gate which led from the street up to the courtyard. He could hear her voice too, along with someone else's.

She was at the bottom of the flight of stairs, dressed in a pale blue twinset and a white skirt, talking to Hojo, the young man he often saw her with. They had been out somewhere together just last week, when Kagome had left him at the bottom of the stairs after coming back from an outing.

"I'm sorry, Hojo," she was saying now. "I know 'sorry' is the most inadequate and cliched thing to say at a time like this, but there is nothing better I can say."

"Kagome, you know how I feel about you – I'll give you more time..." the young man was replying.

"Hojo, you've given me more than enough time. You've been so patient and so kind. I really like you as a friend – I always will – but I can't be more to you. That is the best way I can put it without beating round the bush pointlessly. Once again, I'm sorry."

"Is there someone else...?"

"No, there's no one else. There's never been anyone else, and sometimes I think there never will be."

"What is so wrong with me that you can't bring yourself to be my girlfriend... and my wife...?"

"There's _nothing_ wrong with you!" she cried. "Nothing at all. You're a wonderful guy. And I'm not just saying that – you truly are. It's just that I'm not in love with you. I've tried. It's not working."

Shippo had seen more than any mortal had of such human exchanges over the centuries. He knew that this was usually the point at which the male would get pushy, and the female would need someone to step in and rescue her. But even as he braced himself to help Kagome fend off her devoted admirer, he saw that on this occasion, it was the male who was close to tears, while the female was trying to comfort him. Shippo realised it when Hojo suddenly sat down on the bottom step, as if his legs had lost their power to stand. "Why am I not good enough for you?" the devastated young man asked, utterly bewildered.

"You're more than good enough for me," Kagome answered kindly, quickly stooping down beside him to look up into his face. "Please give your love to someone more deserving. Hojo – please don't be so upset. Maybe you should come up to the house for a bit – I can't leave you here like this..."

Hojo remained silent, staring into space.

"Come up with me – you look like you should take one of my grandfather's concoctions..." It was surely a desperate plea, Shippo thought, knowing what he did of Kagome's grandfather's concoctions from Inuyasha's vivid descriptions.

"Please... I would prefer to be alone for a while. Please just go home," he told her.

"Forgive me, Hojo," she said. Silent tears fell from her eyes, but she knew that the boy was the sadder one here, and she did not want to draw attention to herself by letting him see her cry. She stood up and started slowly up the stairs, but stopped, afraid of leaving him alone in a state like this.

The young man abruptly stood up, however, and turned to look up at her. "I'll be going now," he said.

"Hojo..."

He started walking away, up the street away from the shrine. Kagome started to descend the stairs again, fearful of letting him out of her sight while he was so upset.

Shippo made up his mind on the spot and decided that now was the time to act. So he emerged from the trees and walked down the stairs towards the street. When Kagome heard the sound of his sneakers tapping lightly against the stone, she turned to look up at him in surprise. The shrine did get visitors regularly, so his appearance from the top of the stairs was not as alarming to her as it might have been to another girl who had just seen a stranger coming from the direction of her home. Still, she had not expected someone to be there, and was immediately curious about his sudden appearance.

The sun was in her eyes as he made his way down the topmost steps, and she could not make out his face. So she watched him, studying his bearing in an attempt to determine if he was a normal visitor or someone she should be wary of. As he approached the foot of the stairs, he finally came close enough for her to discern his features. What she saw evidently caused her no unease, for she remained calm, relaxing further when he stopped before her and inclined his head in acknowledgement of her presence.

"Don't worry, Miss," he spoke softly. "I'll go after him and observe him quietly for a while to make sure he comes to no harm."

"Oh..." she began, not knowing how to respond to this development, and slightly embarrassed to think that he must have overheard her conversation with Hojo.

Before she could collect her thoughts, he nodded politely again to her, passed her on the stairs, and moved swiftly up the street after the teenager who had just left her side.

He did not need to look back to know that she was staring after him out of huge brown eyes that sparkled like the stars from the mixture of sunlight and tears that shone in them.

...

She was expecting him when he returned to the shrine later that day.

"Good evening," he greeted her after he climbed the steps and entered the courtyard to find her under the Goshinboku tree. She was sitting on the balustrade that protected the holy tree from shrine visitors who tried to get too close to it – or worse, carve graffiti on its old trunk. She was facing outward, expectantly, instead of staring up at the tree as he had sometimes seen her doing.

"Good evening," she replied, standing up.

Shippo drew closer to her, marvelling at how petite she was. When _his_ Kagome had died, he had still been a child, and she had been taller than him. _This_ girl was so small, so delicate. He was at least a head taller than her.

"I tailed your friend for thirty minutes, then he disappeared into a big house with a pale green-framed sliding door and green windows," he began.

"That would be his parents' home," Kagome said, gazing up at him, searching his eyes intently as if she could read in them who he was, and why he had been so kind to her and Hojo.

"I waited outside for more than an hour," Shippo told her. "His parents and sisters were in, judging by what I could see and hear, and he seemed to be interacting normally with them. He will probably be fine, but if you want to be sure, perhaps you could ask one of his family to keep an eye on him."

"I've already sent a text message to one of his sisters. She'll watch him. Thank you for making sure that he got home safely." She gave him a small but sincere smile.

"You're most welcome, Miss."

"My name is Kagome. Higurashi Kagome."

"My name is Shippo."

He hadn't meant to say that. He was going under a different name in public now, and only the demons of their pack knew and used his real name.

"Shippo?" Kagome asked curiously. "As in the traditional seven treasures, or 'Seventh Treasure'? Do you have that many brothers and sisters?"

"Well," he said awkwardly, scratching his head and grinning at his own slip. "Let's just call it a nickname for now. I don't really have six brothers and sisters. I guess the name is intended to mean 'Seven Treasures' – obviously, I must be full of good stuff!"

She laughed at that. It was _exactly_ like his Kagome's laugh whenever she had been genuinely amused or happy. The very same clear, honest laugh. It touched his heart with such a perfect blend of pain and delight that he caught his breath and felt real anguish for a second, before he caught himself and recovered his balance.

"I must be going now, Higurashi Kagome," he said, needing to leave before he lost all equilibrium. "Perhaps I will visit the shrine again, another time."

"Thank you again, so very much, for going out of your way to help me and my friend even though you don't know us, and also for coming all the way back here to tell me what happened." She bowed to him.

"Please don't mention it. I wasn't going out of my way. It was good meeting you, Higurashi-san. Goodbye."

The fox demon disguised as a mixed-race human bowed back to the girl who was and was not quite the one he had lost, then turned and went back down the long flight of steps, where he soon melted into the city crowd.

From the top of the stairs, the girl who was and was not quite the one he badly missed stared after him, and Shippo had no idea that as he parted from her, she was studying him with great interest and thinking to herself that he was nice and very good looking and most fascinating... and not quite human.


	6. Hook, Line, Sinker

**Hook, Line, Sinker**

He hadn't intended to meet her again so soon. He desired some time and space to get over having the image of his Kagome within touching distance of him again, in the shape of a person who was a whole world away from the one she so resembled.

But as fate would have it, he was browsing in a bookshop five days after his visit to the shrine, when a familiar scent drew him down three aisles to come face to face with her.

"Oh, hello!" she said brightly, the novel she had just eased out from between its tightly packed neighbours poised on the edge of the shelf, half-in and half-out.

"Good to see you again, Miss Higurashi," Shippo smiled at her, feeling more collected than he had imagined he would.

"Please, just call me Kagome," she said. "You've told me what your friends call you, so why shouldn't you call me by my first name?"

It would have been most natural for him to have continued by asking about Hojo and how he was doing. But he did not feel like talking about the lovelorn boy, and Kagome did not seem inclined to mention him.

Instead, they launched into an easy exchange about the books they were interested in. She was looking at a Japanese translation of Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, and he was holding the English translation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. It was a book he had read before, but he had lost his old copy a few months ago during a spell of decluttering and streamlining his long life. Now that he missed it, he wished to buy it again.

"You can read English?" she asked, a little enviously. "I'm not too good at it... oh, how silly of me – I hope I'm not offending you, but judging by your features, you must be mixed-race – of_ course_ you would read English…"

"I'm not offended at all. I _am_ part Japanese, and part… well, lots of other things," he laughed. "But English is not my mother tongue by any means. I had to learn it very slowly over the years."

He did not say just how many years he had had to master a whole range of demon and human tongues.

"Really? Maybe I'll be better at it one day," she sighed, before looking at the book she held in her hand, and chuckling. "Isn't it strange that the author of this book is Japanese by descent, but raised in England so that English became a natural language for him to use – and people tell me he writes so beautifully in it – but now his works get translated into Japanese so that people like me can read them? I wonder how much gets lost in translation that I don't think has been lost, just because I'm fooled by his Japanese name."

"It is curious, isn't it?" he agreed. "And _this_ book I'm holding was originally written in Spanish, but I think it has become known throughout the world largely because of its English translations. A great deal of it must be lost in translation, but millions of English readers hardly consider that – many of them probably don't even remember while reading it that it was originally a Spanish-language story."

He did not add that he had read the original Spanish version, and found that numerous wonderful nuances in it had evaporated in the rendering of the text in English. Even between such closely related European languages, so much could not and did not survive the transition from one tongue to the next.

So close, yet worlds apart.

Kagome set the novel back on the shelf and slipped it neatly and carefully in line with its companions.

"Don't you want that book?" Shippo asked.

"I think I'll borrow it from the library," she said.

Shippo remembered that the Higurashi family was not rich. Books were very expensive in Japan. Kagome was still a student, and probably had not received much pocket money since her father's death. He suddenly felt a powerful sense of how unjust it was that he and his pack were so wealthy because of their Kagome's foresight and love, while the present-day Kagome remained a simple student with a small allowance and a strict budget.

On an impulse, he asked: "I'm going to sit down somewhere for a coffee after I pay for this – want to join me?"

She looked slightly surprised, but his invitation was so casually worded that it sounded like the most natural thing in the world.

"Well, okay – if I won't be intruding on your privacy, that is," she replied.

"You won't, I assure you."

"Then please just give me a minute – I'm going over to the stationery section to pick up some note paper."

"Take your time. I'll meet you at the front entrance."

He did not have to wait long after paying up. She was with him within a couple of minutes, and he was soon leading the way to his favourite gourmet coffee outlet.

"For being kind enough to keep me company for a while, please allow me to buy you coffee," he said to her.

"Oh no, I couldn't..." she began. She had already taken her purse out of her bag.

"You absolutely can," he laughed. "You are doing me a favour by coming here with me, so I owe you."

She smiled back, and with a good grace, allowed him to get the drinks, telling him which item on the menu she would like to have.

"So... what do you do, Shippo?" Kagome asked, when he returned to the table with their coffee – an iced cafe latte for himself, and an iced mocha for her.

"I work with computers," he revealed. "What about you?"

"I'm in my first year at Tokyo University, and I'm aiming to read for a Business and Marketing degree after the first two general years," she said, stirring her drink a little with the green straw before taking her first sip of it. Her long, shining hair tumbled over one shoulder as she leaned forward to drink.

"Why Business and Marketing?" he asked curiously.

"Well, I thought some of it might come in useful in future for helping my family run the shrine. The commercial side of our family business does very nicely sometimes, when more visitors come; but at other times, things aren't so great financially. Still, we're going surprisingly strong for a rather obscure Shinto shrine – so many other shrines that are about on the same level as ours are barely getting by."

Again, that was thanks to the first Kagome. She had set things up painstakingly so that the shrine would be well known in the area in the centuries after her passing. It would never reach the level of fame of the biggest Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples that she had said she remembered from her own time – those which drew tourists and devotees from all over the planet – but for the kind of place it was, it would do well indeed.

"Is that what you really want to study?" Shippo asked, remembering how his human mother had had such a wide variety of interests – from healing to art to archery, and mathematics to science and religion, poetry and other literature. There were occasions on which she had bemoaned her loss of access to some book or other that she had loved reading, and would never read again, as it would not be written for another few hundred years.

"It will do," she said. "It's no better or worse than the other options I might have had. If I really wanted to indulge myself, maybe I would choose the Arts... maybe history or literature... but I can do so much more that's useful and practical with business and marketing qualifications. With history or literature, I would probably end up becoming a teacher, which wouldn't do my family much direct good."

"But how long will your family continue to be the keepers of the shrine?" Shippo asked.

"My grandfather is still very fit and healthy – in spite of his daily complaints about gout, rheumatism, arthritis and creaking knees! So I'm sure he'll be doing this for some time yet. The priesthood is supposed to be hereditary. My father passed away when I was a child, so that means that either my brother or I will have to take over when Grandfather can't do it any more. My brother, Sota, is only thirteen, but he seems interested in training to become a priest, so there's hope. If we don't provide the next priest or priestess, I suppose another family will have to be selected to keep the shrine, and we will have to move out of our home. We have very few close relatives, and none of them are interested in the shrine... I'm sorry, I'm talking too much..."

Like so many girls of her age in the modern era, she had a peculiar blend of confidence and self-consciousness, demonstrated by a readiness to talk openly one moment, then be struck by embarrassment the next.

"Not at all. I like listening to you," Shippo assured her, thinking how sad it was that the girl did not know that she in fact had _numerous_ blood relatives all over Japan – some demon, some part-demon, and some almost entirely human. "Would you be interested in being a priestess?"

She chuckled before answering: "My mother tells me that I was named after a priestess in our family from some four to five hundred years ago. So maybe it will be my destiny in years to come. But for now? No, I'm really not that interested in the spiritual side of things. I leave all that to my grandfather. He hardly encourages me to take a stronger interest in it, though, what with his weird presents of preserved water sprites' hands and dragons' whiskers..."

Shippo laughed at the mention of water sprites' hands, thinking of the obstinate Jaken, who now spent most of his days disguised in public as a very vertically challenged human being. The kappa had finally found himself a water sprite mate about three hundred years ago (at long last!), fathered a couple of children, was responsible for looking after the dragon Ah-Un (spelled to look like a large mongrel when out and about), and still visited Sesshomaru very regularly to pay his obsequious respects.

"You must find my family very strange," Kagome remarked, chuckling in response to his laughter about her grandfather's presents to her.

"No. I think you love your family very much, to want to do so much for them."

"Mama and Grandpa are so good to me and Sota, how can we not love them back?"

"Family is irreplaceable."

"Yes."

"So, do you know much about the priestess you were named after? Are you very much like her?"

"You know, it's odd – according to what Mama and Grandpa tell me, our family has many records of that priestess herself, but at the same time we know so little about her life. Grandpa often puzzles over why he finds old records indicating that she had many descendants, but no mention of who they were and what might have become of them. We seem to know only about our branch of the family. Maybe the other branches died out."

_Or maybe the direct ancestors of your branch did you a great disservice by excising all mention of the rest of the clan from their own family records,_ thought Shippo.

Eventually, of course, the subject of Hojo had to come up, and Kagome said to Shippo: "I'm really grateful to you for keeping an eye on him that day, until he reached his parents' home."

"Please don't mention it. How is he?"

"He's not really talking to me at the moment, but he's been attending classes as usual, and he still goes out with his other friends. His sister says he is coping."

"That's good."

"Thank you for not interrogating me about him. Everyone else asks me what there is not to like about him. I always say there is nothing at all wrong with him. I just don't think we're right for each other – there it is in a nutshell."

"You must take your time finding out what and who _is_ right for you," Shippo told her. "Someone as kind and beautiful as you deserves only the best."

The plainness and honesty with which he spoke those words surprised her, as the widening of her brown eyes suggested.

"Some people put a priority on comfort and security," he went on. "Maybe for them, settling for someone half-suitable is the best thing to do, otherwise they'll never be happy as long as they live. But for other people, it is important to always make the right choices, no matter how many years it takes them to attain their goals. I sense that you have made academic and future-career compromises for the sake of the ones you love, but I do not think you would ever be truly happy with compromises in other areas of life. Like love and marriage. _Especially_ not in love and marriage."

Kagome's eyes grew bright as he spoke those words, and Shippo felt himself reddening a little, snared by the gaze of those beautiful, round, melting-chocolate-brown orbs no more than a foot away from his own green irises.

"I've spoken too bluntly," he said quickly. "I hope you don't think I'm getting too personal."

"No, you are very right about me," she replied. "How did you know all that?"

"I've seen a lot of human nature."

"Are you a psychologist?"

"Far from it. I may derive a lot of information from my observations, but I am no psychologist. Any con artist could do what I've just done."

"But you're _not_ a con artist," she said, smiling.

"Hmm, my friends often remind me that I was full of tricks when I was small, but I am certainly not a con artist now. I can promise you that much."

"Then you're extremely perceptive about people. You hardly know me, yet you sound as if you've known me for years."

"It isn't hard. You _do_ remind me a lot of my mother, you know..."

Her eyes were just as wide as they had been when she first wondered at his insight into her personality, but the look in them was now quite different. She seemed taken aback, and she only said "Oh", before she went quiet and turned her full concentration on her drink.

As much of human nature as he might have seen, Shippo did not always remember as the different eras whizzed by how much cultural and social norms evolved. It took a second too long to strike him that he hadn't said the right thing. Centuries ago, a young girl might have been charmed and moved to be likened to the honoured mother of a young man addressing her; these days, it would probably be received as an insult.

"No, I mean..." he began quickly.

But she was speaking too, at exactly the same time: "I shouldn't have thought..."

"It wasn't my intention to..." he tried again.

"Of course it wasn't!" she replied hastily before he could finish. "I _know_ it wasn't your intention... I mean, this isn't the _feudal_ era – we're living in modern times, for goodness' sake, so of course I _didn't_ think you asked me to join you for a coffee because you, you know..."

Then her teenage self-consciousness overcame her gregariousness and she flushed. It dawned on Shippo that it _had_ to have been in her mind that he had invited her for a coffee because she thought he had found her attractive, and...

"Oh..." she groaned, fumbling for the bag she had slung over the back of her chair. "Why did I even _say_ that? I'm so sorry – I know you're purely being friendly – I really do."

Having got hold of her bag strap, she sprang to her feet, almost knocking the light aluminium chair over.

"Please forgive me for all this awkwardness," she said before he could even try to speak, giving him a quick bow. "I must go. Thank you so much for the coffee. Please ignore everything I've said. _Everything._"

"Kagome..." he began, likewise getting to his feet, although he did not really know what to say next as he was still processing the fact that the girl he had been thinking of as his mother reincarnated had thought that he might be attracted to her. But she had already spun about and dashed off. He could easily have gone after her, but she looked so embarrassed that he knew she would not welcome his catching up with her.

When he could no longer pick out her scent, thanks to the distance she had gained and the crowds pressing about them both in this busy city, he sat down again and looked at her drink, which still had a quarter of its contents left untouched in the clear plastic cup.

He picked up his own cup, drew up another strawful of cold milk and coffee, and leaned back in his chair.

_She's just as impulsive, open, and mercurial as my Kagome. And just as clumsy as she was at her age. There is no difference between them at all,_ he thought.

Except that he had never felt lost in the melting brown oceans of his human mother's eyes before, whereas this girl had almost drawn him in with her trusting gaze, to the point where he knew he had blushed a little, and almost tumbled into those twin seas.

She was just like his mother. But she was _not_ his mother.

Not his mother, as everyone who had cautioned him about meeting her had told him.

_So,_ wondered Shippo. _What now?_


	7. Mother, Mother

**Mother, Mother**

It was the most ridiculous thing. Making his way to the shrine the next day to see Kagome with the hope of talking to her and making her feel better, he had imagined himself the strong, silent hero striding across town to save the girl.

Instead, _she_ ended up saving _him_. From the dog.

The creature was a feisty little Jack Russell Terrier that had slipped out through someone's gate to nip at his heels, barking away at the same time.

"Bad dog!" Shippo growled at it. His use of the inu tongue threw it somewhat, and it paused for a second to give him a curious stare. But the second passed all too soon, and it was going for his heels again, not exactly biting him, but certainly butting at his shoes and ankles and making tight circles round his feet, barking and attracting lots of attention from passers-by.

Shippo bent down, picked the little creature up, gave her a stern, canine-style shake and growled again at her in the inu language: _Stop that, little one. Go home._

But upon being set down on the pavement, the little one barked even louder at him, then started tearing at the hem of his right trouser leg.

"Cease that at once!" Shippo ordered the dog, who promptly ignored him.

"Suki!" came Kagome's cry from up the street, where the steps leading to the shrine were.

The dog, hearing its name, left off Shippo's trousers and tore up the pavement towards Kagome, barking in greeting. But it quieted down at once when the girl lifted it into her arms and cradled it.

"Suki, Suki, Suki," she murmured soothingly. "Naughty Suki. You are behaving very badly!"

She walked towards Shippo as she calmed the dog. The fox demon noticed that her cheeks were colouring slightly as she approached him.

"It take it you know that dog," he remarked.

"Yes. Please give me a few minutes while I return it to its family."

She went some way down the street, to the gate of the house the dog had slipped out from. She rang the bell and waited until a woman hurried out to the front gate to take the runaway dog from her while bowing and apologising profusely. That done, Kagome made her way back towards Shippo.

"I should have thought of that," he said to her, abashed. "You may not believe it, but I actually have a lot of experience with dogs. Unfortunately, despite my many years of working and living with them, they _never_ listen to a thing I say."

_How embarrassing,_ he thought, _that a girl named Kagome is still saving my hide from inu bullies after five hundred years!_

"Nakamura-san sometimes forgets to latch her gate when she gets home after doing the marketing," Kagome said. "Suki slips out easily when that happens. She has even run all the way up the steps to the shrine before to chase Buyo – that's our cat."

She seemed a little subdued, and Shippo knew she was still feeling self-conscious about their exchange yesterday.

"Um, about yesterday–" she began, only to fall silent when he pulled a book out of his backpack and gave it to her.

"This is a present from me to you," he said. "I sincerely hope you will accept it."

She stared at the cover, taking in what she was seeing. It was the book she had been looking at yesterday, the translation of The Remains of the Day.

"Oh, you shouldn't have!" she breathed, lifting to him a face that was torn between genuine pleasure and that typically Japanese expression of near-dismay that was born of the embarrassment that someone she barely knew should be giving her what she thought of as a rather expensive gift.

"I absolutely should," he replied, smiling at the delight in her eyes.

"This is so kind of you, I'm very grateful," she said, bowing to him.

Shippo felt a twinge of sadness that this girl was so very young, and shy in a way that his mother had never been. She was a little lacking in confidence where his Kagome had been bold, and self-conscious where his Kagome had been forced to charge into situations not caring how she looked. This child ought to be free to tear through the world, firing her sacred arrows at injustice and evil, shouting out her feelings without reservation. But perhaps that was not to be her destiny...

"What?" the girl in front of him asked, puzzled, for he had been staring at her for half a minute straight, smiling nostalgically.

"I'm sorry," he said at once. "What I said yesterday about your reminding me of my mother – I meant it because you look very much like she did when she was your age. You are as breathtakingly beautiful as she was, and just as honest, and kind. But you are _not_ her, and in many ways you are not like her at all. I want you to know that although you resemble her greatly, I do _not_ look at you now and think 'Mama', all right?"

He said that last bit so jovially that she could not help it. She giggled, and had to look down at her feet, because it would be rude to laugh out loud in the face of someone who was speaking of his mother. When she had controlled her urge to laugh, she looked up again and asked him: "Do you have many pictures of your mother from when she was younger? How does she look now?"

"My mother – actually, she was my adoptive mother – passed away long ago. I do have a few pictures of her at home." _Paintings, not photographs._

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Kagome said, her brown eyes immediately wide with compassion. "You must miss her very much."

"Very much. But I have good memories of her, and I will carry them with me all my life. That has to be enough for me."

They began to walk up the stairs towards the shrine, quite naturally, she sensing that he would like to go up with her, and he sensing that she would like him to accompany her home. They paused by the Goshinboku tree together. She did so because it had become her habit in recent years to seek the tree's wisdom; he because he wished to pay his usual respects to the ancient being. Out of so many trees that had once grown in the old forest, this one had survived to this day because it had become honoured by humans as a living thing held sacred for reasons long forgotten.

"Would you like to come to the house?" she asked, a little uncertainly.

He felt a moment's frustration that she was so hesitant, so lacking in the confidence that his Kagome had brimmed with. Then he realised that he was being unfair to her – he had just told her that he did not see her as his mother when he looked at her, and here he was comparing them again.

Before he could rearrange the jumbled thoughts and feelings in his head and heart, and give her a reply that he would be happy to just sit in the courtyard for a while, her mother opened the front door and looked out.

"Kagome!" she called. "There you are! I thought you were in, but when I called to you earlier, you weren't around."

"Mama – sorry, I heard Suki barking in the street, and knew she had run out of her home again, so I went down the stairs."

"No wonder," said Mrs Higurashi with a smile, putting on her sandals and stepping outside when she saw that her daughter had company. "I called to you earlier because I've just boiled some ginger tea, and wanted you to drink some. Is this boy one of your classmates?"

Shippo bowed to Kagome's mother, quickly said "Konnichiwa" to her, and introduced himself by the name he went by. "My name is Toshio – Souga Toshio, but my family and friends all call me Shippo. I am not Kagome's classmate, but we first met when I visited the shrine a few days ago."

"This is the man who helped me by following Hojo to make sure he got home safely, Mama," Kagome said in a slightly embarrassed manner.

"I am so pleased to meet you at last. When Kagome told me about what happened, I thought what a wonderfully good-hearted person you must be," Mrs Higurashi said, with so much warmth that Shippo blushed.

"You are much too kind to say so, Mrs Higurashi," he replied.

"Please won't you come in for some ginger tea? It's fresh and hot right now."

He found himself accepting, and was surprised to be conducted to the kitchen-and-dining area instead of the living room, where most strangers would normally be shown to. As he took a seat beside Kagome, sipped on the delicious tea, and was fussed over in subtle ways by Mrs Higurashi, he realised just how much he had missed having a mother in his life. Sesshomaru and Inuyasha never _fussed_ lightly in the way maternally inclined females did. They cared, and loved, and were fiercely protective of their family, but the little touches that a mother could give were most certainly absent from the way they interacted with their children.

Buyo the cat wandered into the kitchen and stared at Shippo. The fox demon knew that _this_ Buyo had never met Inuyasha or been traumatised by his teasing (which Kagome had often spoken about when relating stories of Inuyasha in her world). But perhaps cats had ways of communicating across time streams, because the tortoiseshell feline glared at him suspiciously, literally looked him up and down as if checking for dog ears on the top of his head, then pointedly ignored him and lay down near Kagome's chair.

"Buyo likes you," Kagome stated, as she lifted the glass tumbler to her lips to drink the ginger tea. She sounded very sure of it, as certain and as confident she had been during some moments when they had been in the cafe yesterday.

"Does he?" Shippo asked with a smile. "I thought he was looking at me most disapprovingly." He was very fond of cats, having spent so many years with Kirara, but domestic cats didn't always take to him.

"No, he definitely likes you. He pretty much ignores people he trusts. If he didn't like you, he wouldn't even stay in this room. But he _is_ still a bit wary of you, maybe because he doesn't know you."

_Or maybe he can tell I'm a fox._

She leaned down and picked the overweight cat up in her arms, set him on her lap and stroked him from his head down to his rump. "Buyo, you're getting fatter and heavier all the time – what _have_ you been eating?"

The cat purred, stared at Shippo again, and shut his watery green eyes when Shippo stared back through his own bright green ones. When Shippo reached a hand out and tickled him under the chin, he pressed his head down on his fingers and rubbed his chin hard from side to side, bumping over all of Shippo's knuckles.

"Using Shippo's hand to give yourself a massage, are you, clever little Buyo?" Kagome asked.

The cat purred, very comfortable in her familiar lap; Shippo knew exactly how he felt.

"Are you a student, Shippo?" Mrs Higurashi asked, returning from a trip to the fridge to present him with a plate of red-bean jelly.

"No, I work with computers," he replied.

"Freelance, or attached to a company?" she queried.

"I mostly do IT work for the Souga Organisation."

"Souga Organisation?" Mrs Higurashi echoed. "That's a big family business. And you said your name was... oh, are you a member of that family?"

"I am," he admitted. "Keiji Souga is my adoptive father." It would be too complicated to go into detail now about how he had _two_ adoptive fathers.

"Ah," Kagome's mother said, looking thoughtfully at him. "Does that mean you are engaged to one of the Souga daughters?"

Shippo realised at once what she was thinking. In big family-run companies, it was not uncommon for promising, unmarried male managers to be adopted by the boss or one of his male relatives if the family could not produce competent sons to carry on the business. More often than not, the arrangement included marriage to one of the daughters of the family so that the grandchildren would bear both the patriarch's surname through their father's adopted name, and the patriarch's blood through his natural daughter.

"No, no," he said quickly. "There is only one Souga daughter, and she married long ago, and has children of her own. I was adopted when I was a child. Business matters had nothing to do with it. I am not engaged to be married to anyone."

"I see," Kagome's mother smiled. "How nice to know that!"

"Mama," Kagome laughed, a warm, amused, delightful laugh to Shippo's ears. "What a thing to say! I'm sure he doesn't think it's 'nice' that he isn't married. I'm sure he would _like_ to be."

"Oh?" Mrs Higurashi asked, looking with interest from her daughter to the green-eyed young man.

That was when Kagome realised what she had implied. She froze with the cat in her lap and her ginger tea halfway to her mouth, and turned red.

"No, no, no, I meant..." she said to her mother, before turning to Shippo and going: "No, I mean that I didn't mean..."

Then she dropped her forehead to her arm on the table, and groaned: "Ah... I should just stop saying anything."

Shippo burst out laughing.

"I suppose you think that's _really_ funny," Kagome raised her head to snap at him half-fiercely and half-abashedly, which only made him laugh some more as he admired how her flushed cheeks set off her bright brown eyes.

_That's more like it, Kagome – a little more fire suits you perfectly._

Just then, his mobile phone buzzed. He apologised to Kagome and her mother, and excused himself from the table, stepping out into the hallway to take the call. It was Kuromatsu, their badger-demon employee.

"Shippo," came the familiar voice over the line. "You'd better come in. There's an emergency with Kanta's account."

"Okay. Give me twenty minutes."

He stepped back into the kitchen to say with genuine regret: "I'm sorry, but there's a work problem I have to deal with urgently. I must go. Thank you so much for your hospitality, Mrs Higurashi, Kagome."

"We were very glad to have you here, and we hope you will visit us again very soon," Mrs Higurashi said sincerely. It was heartfelt, not just the kind of thing people said to be polite.

"Thank you again for the book," Kagome said, still a bit pink in the face.

"I am honoured that you accepted my little gift, Kagome. And I would be very happy to visit again when I can," he said. "Thank you, Mrs Higurashi."

"Please, you can call me Obasan."


	8. Access Denied

**Access Denied**

"All right, what's the problem, Kuromatsu?" Shippo called out as he stepped into the fortress-like quarters housing the heart of Souga Organisation's – and their pack's – security system.

Coming in here was always a bit of a hassle, because it meant going through several layers of security using the special passes issued only to the company's owners and top-level managers, followed by deeper internal security which necessitated the shedding of all spells and disguises so that one's youki could be recognised by colleagues and the digital-magical system.

But the moment he was inside, he knew from the youki he sensed that it wasn't just a routine problem, because both Sesshomaru and Inuyasha were there. Sesshomaru's length of fur trailed luxuriantly across the floor, which was fortunately clear of messy cables and wires.

"What happened?" Shippo asked much more soberly. "I was told there was an emergency with Kanta's account?"

"The problem that occurred with Kanta's account was only a sign of the real problem," Kuromatsu said, his brow furrowing under the shock of striped, black-and-white hair covering his head.

He was the chief of the team of badger demons Shippo had trained to manage the system. They had become a trusted part of their pack when a small number of European badger demons, fleeing the persecution and harsh industrialisation of that continent, had slipped into Japan some two hundred years ago. They had sought refuge in the last country in the world where demons were still regarded in many communities as a natural part of life – even while humans from other lands were regarded with the greatest of suspicion.

Kuromatsu was one of the sons of the original refugees. The family had readily adopted Japanese names and customs, chosen mates from among Japanese badger-demon tribes, and had sworn loyalty to Sesshomaru and the canine pack.

"Someone tried to break into the system," Sesshomaru elaborated.

"That's not unusual..." Shippo started to say.

"Using demon magic," Inuyasha added. "We've countered it the best we can with our spells, but we need you to do a complete job."

"Damn. Did they do any serious damage?" Shippo asked.

"No," Kuromatsu assured him. "The magic they tried to employ was very crude compared with yours. They seemed to lack the skills to integrate it well with their computer-hacking abilities. But their repeated attempts did overload our system and cause parts of it to freeze up. Kanta's account, which we were working on at the time, had some data scrambled. We're hoping the data corruption doesn't get noticed by any of the human systems it's on."

"That is a weakness I'm going to have to plug fast," Shippo muttered, slipping into a seat in front of one of the terminals. "I've been resisting magic-proofing the system at a higher level so far. Partly because it's going to add a further step of clearance whenever we log in, but mainly because I didn't think that anyone else out there would try using magic to break in. It looks like the headstart we've had all this while may be eroded by other demon packs soon, if we don't make greater advances."

He conjured a spell and uttered it into a voice-recognition device he had invented, which could be used only by authorised individuals. The device could code spells into ordinary keystrokes. The user could then amend those keystrokes into any arrangement of letters or numerals to be entered into a field or an external system. Once done, the letters and numerals looked and behaved like ordinary text or code, except that their addition to the system, or alteration on it, was completely undetectable, leaving no footprints. The greatest computer experts would find nothing unusual in any sequence of Shippo's magic-coded letters or numbers; even a magically trained demon could not point out the magical elements in it from an external machine or computerised system – once it was entered as ordinary code, the magic would vanish, leaving no traces.

Shippo now applied his spelled codes to his own system, but added an element to the spell that would disguise the magic behind it while preventing it from dissipating. This would mean that if another demon out there, or a magically trained human like an onmyoji attempted to break in or clog the system using their own spelled codes, they would come up against a wall they would find no chinks in, before they could even try to overload them with attacks.

"Done. Next," Shippo murmured, as he moved swiftly on to remedy Kanta's scrambled account. He would have to warn his river otter friend to be alert to any odd changes to the personal data of his alias – fortunately, it was the old alias he was soon to terminate that was affected, not the new one he was generating for future needs. Shippo and his pack had been very protective of Kanta ever since they had met him as a nearly-orphaned child five hundred years ago. Even Sesshomaru, who at the time was in his old, cold and bad phase of caring for no one but himself and Rin, had been prompted by Tenseiga to resurrect Kanta's father.

Since then, Shippo had in many ways had a third living father in the person of the older river otter, and was treated like a son whenever he called on them, or when the otters visited the canine demons.

All these people who looked to them for refuge and protection – whether five hundred years ago, or two hundred years ago, or now, and who repaid them with loyalty and friendship, were their responsibility. He could not let them come to harm because of any problems with his inventions, magic or computer skills. So he spent some more time scanning the system for viruses and trojans, whether digital or magical, and satisfied himself that nothing unwelcome had snuck in to give them trouble.

"Now, let's see which idiots were trying to gatecrash us," he rumbled, green eyes flashing brightly with determination and disapproval as he hunted out the clumsy trails left by the troublemakers. In a matter of minutes, he had tracked down the individual computer from which the attack had been launched. "...though this may mean nothing if the computer was hacked by someone else..."

Still, it was worth starting somewhere. A few magically-concealed hacking tricks by Shippo himself on the records of internet service providers and computer-sales companies called out a single name.

"Moe Ito. Not a name I know. But in our world, an alias alone means nothing," Shippo remarked.

Further hacking into the databases of registration records kept by government and social agencies produced more details, and eventually, a passport photograph. Shippo found himself staring at the face of a woman who looked vaguely familiar. Something about the eyes, the expression, and the overall look of that face...

"I've seen her before somewhere," Inuyasha was murmuring too, ears pricked, as he leaned forward beside Shippo's chair to peer curiously into the computer screen. "She looks... she looks like..."

"Bloody hell!" Shippo gasped, almost falling out of his seat and knocking Inuyasha over, when it finally hit him. "Mujina!"

"Ohhhh, yeah, it is, isn't it?" Inuyasha said, glancing sideways at Shippo with a mischievous gleam in his golden eyes. "Now that's a face we haven't seen in a long time. She's looking good, huh? Or should I say _he_?"

Shippo blanched.

Sesshomaru, as puzzled as the badger demons, inquired cautiously: "Something I should know about?"

"Did you know that our boy here used to be a hell of a flirt as a child?" Inuyasha asked, grinning evilly, putting an arm around Shippo's shoulders. "He had a girlfriend in _every_ village, and whenever it came down to choosing the pretty girl or choosing us, it would be the pretty girl without fail – even on the occasions when the girl turned out not to be a girl but a stinky old racoon dog in disguise, trying to steal the Tetsusaiga's powers!"

"All right, that's not fair," Shippo protested. "You already gave me a huge lump on the head for that back then. Besides, I was young and gullible."

"You can say that again," Inuyasha snorted. The hanyou cuffed Shippo – playfully, but not lightly, prompting a yelp from the fox demon.

"So that's a male tanuki youkai?" Sesshomaru asked, scrutinising the picture on the screen.

"Well, we don't know that it's the very same tanuki demon behind that disguise," Inuyasha said. "It could be someone else wearing a more mature version of the same little-girl look, or a descendant of the original idiot demon. But if you ask me? That look in those eyes? That face? It's him."

Kuromatsu was growling a little. Badger demons did not like racoon dog demons. As they were both mostly black and white in colouring, people sometimes confused them with one another when they were in their undisguised anthropomorphic forms, which offended the badgers. Anakuma youkai were reputed to be intelligent, dogged and diligent, while most tanuki youkai had a tendency to be cheap, bumbling tricksters without the sophistication of fox demons, and with questionable ethical values. Even the Inu-tachi's old tanuki pal, Hachi, had been a bit on the cowardly side, and had not been above taking money from them for helping them out of tight spots, despite his long friendship with Miroku.

"Let's find out more about this Mujina, or Mujina lookalike, whoever or whatever he or she is," Shippo mumbled. "I'll investigate, and see if we can discover what he was trying to do. Fortunately, the original Mujina wasn't too bright, so if it's him, he should have made lots of mistakes and left clues I can pick up on."

"Okay," Inuyasha said. "I'll ask Koga and his team to be on standby, as a last resort, in case we need to capture him for questioning."

"That should indeed be the last resort," Sesshomaru decided. "I would rather not make direct contact at all."

"I agree, Otou-sama," was Shippo's response. "But the fact that he knew to use magic to try getting into our system suggests that he may already know what we are."

"Well, if it comes to direct contact, I'm certainly looking forward on your behalf to the reunion, Shippo," Inuyasha chuckled. "You didn't get to kiss her that time, did you, before I kicked all the disguise right out of her? Or him. _Stinky_ old him."

Shippo went pale again under his embarrassed scowl.

...

"I couldn't get in at all," said the tanuki demon to his comrade.

"Not one chink in there?" asked the other tanuki.

"No. Not one chink. Totally impenetrable."

"So we can't find out if those demons still have the sword that took the power of the Dakki blade, or what became of the Shikon Jewel – they are the ones that were rumoured to have been responsible for destroying the jewel, aren't they?"

"I believe so. I know for certain that they had the great sword at the time I tried to steal its power, and I later heard they were the same ones who destroyed the jewel. But that was just a rumour."

"If we could only confirm what magical weapons and objects they still have or do not have, we could make better plans concerning what to take from them, so that we can rule the world."

"Er... I tried that ruling the world stuff five hundred years ago, and it just didn't work out," said the tanuki who had gone by the name of Mujina in a little girl's guise in the feudal era.

"It's not too late to try again, now that we have more resources, and greater backing," said the other demon.

"If only we could have got that fool Hachi to cooperate with us. He knows these demons. He could get in there," Mujina growled.

"Well, that's a dead end. He's gone into hiding, and we don't know where to start looking for him. Stupid, fat creature. He should stick with his own tribe."

"He can't have made contact with the canine tribe, can he?"

"No. When I tracked them down by keeping surveillance on him two years ago, and he found out what we were up to after we tried to cosy up to him for months, he vanished. Since then, for the past year, we've been watching them from afar, but there's no way to get in among their pack. They're too tight."

"Although there is that girl," Mujina commented.

"The priestess?"

"Yeah. I honestly thought she'd died hundreds of years ago, along with the monk and the slayer I encountered when I tried to trick that naive little fox runt. But after we started observing the group a year ago, I found her again. Some of them have been watching her from afar, but we've never been able to find out much more about the situation because they're always alert enough to quickly suspect when someone else is watching _them_. I don't know what happened, but the priestess must have had a falling out with the rest of the pack, because she no longer lives with them."

"There's no way an ordinary human could have survived for five hundred years," rumbled the other tanuki.

"But it's her. I sensed her aura and got her scent, and it's the same priestess as before. She must be a supremely powerful human."

"So... maybe we can use her."

"Eh?"

"If she's that powerful, she may have knowledge that can give us greater power. She's fallen out with her group, right? So she's no longer under their protection. Maybe we can get to _her_."

...

Kagome curled up in bed that evening, reading the book Shippo had given her, growing absorbed in the atmosphere of nostalgia, loss and the sense of wasted opportunity that filled its pages. What a beautiful story this was promising to be.

She put the book down after a few hours to drink some water from the tumbler on her desk, and while she stood near her window, she sensed again that she was being watched. Was it like the last time she had imagined a pair of green eyes looking at her, but at the same time making her feel so safe? Those eyes, green like Shippo's...

No. This was different. Someone or something else, not the beautiful green eyes, was out there. She glanced at the latch of her window to make certain it was locked. It was. But she still felt uneasy, so she drew her curtain quickly, and shut out whatever it was outside, in the darkness. It made her feel better to think that whoever it was could not see her now.

But as she turned out the light that night and went to bed, she could not help feeling disturbed. The sense that something unwelcome was still out there hovered over her. She felt better only when she put her hand on Shippo's present.

She fell asleep soon after that, her palm on the book's cover, thinking: _Maybe Green Eyes will come by to chase the bad things away..._


	9. Strange Ways

**Strange Ways**

"Hojo!" Kagome called out to her friend, at the end of one of the lectures that they both attended.

He stopped outside the lecture theatre and turned to her expectantly, half-hoping that keeping his distance from her for a number of days had made her realise what she was missing. But his hopes fell when she held out a familiar-looking sheaf of papers to him.

"Eri asked me to return these notes to you," she said gently. "She's down with the flu and hasn't been able to attend lectures or tutorials since last Friday. I went to visit her yesterday to see how she was doing, and she asked me if I could give these back to you. She thanks you for lending them to her – I couldn't help her as I don't take that class."

"Oh. Thank you."

"It's no problem at all. I have to go now, so I'll see you another time."

"Wait!" he called out, walking after her. "Wasn't that a bit risky, going to see her? Weren't you afraid of catching the flu too?"

"Oh no," she laughed. "I've always had an immune system like iron. I don't fall sick that easily. I really must go, because my next lecture is at the other end of this wing – I don't want to be late!"

She looked so pretty with her hair unbound, and dressed in her pure white cotton blouse and light woollen lavender skirt, as she waved goodbye and disappeared into the crowd of undergraduates rushing to the next place each of their timetables dictated they would have to be at. Hojo stood there watching her leave, realising that this was how their lives would be from now – casual talk and quick goodbyes on the way from one place to another, so different from the hopes he had had of sharing his life with her.

He had a tutorial to attend, so he reluctantly moved off. But later, he could not resist hanging around outside the hall where he knew she had her final lecture of the day on Tuesdays. Her Tuesdays always ended early, at one in the afternoon. He had slipped out of his own lecture five minutes before the professor dismissed them, so that he could go down two corridors and be there when she emerged from the hall she was in – and there she was. She always used the lower exit after her last class unless she needed to go to the library, because it was closest to the street from which she could get into the train station and make her way home.

He found himself following her – not initially with the aim of tailing her or anything like that, but just hoping that he would find an opportunity to speak with her again, if there could be a way to make it look like nothing more than pure chance. He had another class an hour later, so it wouldn't be easy to explain why he was leaving the campus too if she should see him.

As he walked several metres behind her along the street, he saw that she was not entering the train station, but passing it and going down another street. He felt a surge of curiosity. Was she meeting someone? Running an errand before going home?

She entered a stationery shop, and he felt a sense of relief. So she wasn't meeting some other guy for lunch or coffee. But why this stationery shop, which was fancier and more expensive, when their campus had its own bookstore which sold stationery at a discount to students?

Then he remembered that her family shrine regularly ordered blank supplies of decorative paper and other items which they would personalise using their own ink stamps, or hand to the calligraphers or artists they worked with to write or paint characters or images that related to blessings, fortunes, or ancient myths and sayings. These were then sold to visitors and tourists.

Yes, from where he peered in at her through the window display, it looked like she was placing an order for some paper. He had to scramble away quickly when she turned from the counter and left the shop, putting a receipt into her purse. He ducked into the doorway of a cafe and held his breath, hoping she wouldn't see him, for this was the way back towards the train station.

Half a minute went by, and she did not pass him.

He peered back into the street and saw that she was walking up the road, away from the station. _Another errand?_ he wondered.

He followed her again, up the road, keeping that lavender skirt in view. She soon took a left turn into a very quiet side lane which had a few small shops, and food and beverage establishments, most of which were closed for the afternoon. The road was too narrow for vehicular traffic, and there was no one else walking along it except Kagome, and himself about ten metres behind her. Kagome walked in the middle of the road, on the tarmac, looking from one side to another as if trying to locate a particular shop. She seemed to be referring to a piece of paper she was holding in her left hand. He himself kept to the sheltered walkway, taking note of potted plants and pillars behind which he could duck if she were to suddenly retrace her footsteps.

But she stopped in front of a shop fronted by heavy wooden sliding doors screened by old-fashioned, thick paper. As she stood there, the door slid open, and someone in the shadows stepped aside, as if to invite her in. Hojo could not get a good view of who the person was. It seemed to him, however, that Kagome was balking at going in. The girl looked again at the piece of paper she held in her hand, and seemed to be asking the person if this was the right place.

The person then stepped out of the shop and bowed repeatedly to Kagome, as if trying to persuade her to enter. It was a woman that Hojo had never seen before, dressed in a fairly traditional sort of summer kimono.

When Kagome continued to stand in the street and ask questions, the woman suddenly moved up close to her – so quickly that Hojo barely noticed she had moved at all until she was just quite suddenly _there_, two inches away from Kagome. The stranger put a tentative hand out towards the girl, looked surprised, then closed her right hand around Kagome's left wrist.

Kagome struggled, and raised her voice. He could now make out that she was saying: "What are you doing? Let me go!"

Hojo rushed forward, realising that this was a moment when he could be a hero to her.

"Hey! Let her go!" he yelled, sprinting towards them.

The woman, however, only raised her head calmly and glared at him out of eyes that were glowing red like burning coals. Before he could fully register that fact or process the possibility of it, she was stretching out her left hand – the one she wasn't using to hold Kagome's wrist, and making a strange gesture in his direction.

He didn't know what it meant, that odd movement of her fingers writing a sign in the air, or the flexing of her palm outward. He only knew that in the next instant, he was flying backwards and landing painfully on his backside in the middle of the road, several feet from where he had just been.

"Ow!" he yelled as he made violent contact with the tarmac. But there was no time to worry about himself, for Kagome was crying out now, shouting his name and desperately trying to twist free of the strange woman. He struggled to his feet and tried to run towards them again, but the woman dragged Kagome towards the shop, and even from that distance, he could see his friend struggling frantically in the doorway – before suddenly vanishing into thin air.

He hobbled in disbelief towards the shop and staggered inside, only to see a completely empty space before him – unlit, bare, dusty, without a single item of furniture in it.

"Kagome!" he yelled at the top of his voice.

He pushed against the walls and stamped a foot on different parts of the shop's floor, hoping to find a hidden trapdoor or opening. But there was nothing. He ran back out onto the street and looked around wildly. No one had come out of the other shops and eateries. The establishments here were the traditional Japanese sort with solid walls, opaque fronts and closed sliding doors further shielded by dark-coloured fabric screens. Besides, it was in-between the usual lunch and dinner hours. No one had seen anything that had just occurred. Anyone who had heard the exchange between Kagome and the woman, Kagome's cries, his exclamation of pain and his yelling out her name might have thought that some students were horsing around in the street, and would take a while to slide open a door and peer out to see what was going on.

True enough, a few faces and heads were finally poking out now, but all they could see was him, alone in the street, not another soul in sight. So they put their heads back inside, and shut their doors again.

Hojo was momentarily torn between banging on one of those screen doors to demand help, and calling the police. He decided on the latter, and whipped out his mobile phone so he could call the authorities and tell them that his friend had just been kidnapped. His hands were shaking so badly that he almost dropped the phone. He was about to press the keypad when someone else appeared in the street and rushed up to him like a flow of wind.

It was a tall man with reddish hair, pale skin, and green eyes.

"Where is Kagome?" the man demanded, taking hold of his elbow. "You're Hojo, aren't you? Where is she? I had her scent, then it disappeared!"

"She – she's been kidnapped!" he stuttered in reply, wide-eyed, without the least idea of who this strange man was, or how he knew his name, or what he was saying about Kagome's scent. Her _scent?_ But Kagome didn't wear perfume... what was going on?

"Tell me what you saw!" the man commanded, piercing him with his bright green eyes.

"I – I – I saw a woman – a woman I've never seen – seize Kagome by the wrist and pull her into that empty shop – but they've disappeared! I tried to run towards them, but that woman threw me backwards without even touching me! What – who – what is going on?"

"Don't call the police. I'll find Kagome. I promise," the green-eyed man said, releasing his elbow now and dashing into the shop, where he seemed to be... he seemed to be _sniffing_ the air. Then he disappeared in a flash right before Hojo's eyes.

Hojo gaped, mouth wide open. He stared and stared, then looked down at his mobile phone and started numbly pressing the first number for the police on his keypad, only to stop as he asked himself: _What am I supposed to say? That three people just vanished into thin air in an empty Tokyo shophouse not fifteen minutes away from the university?_

He looked up and gazed down the empty street, stared at his phone once more, tried to make the call, then moved his thumb off the keypad and lowered his hand to his side in a daze.

He wouldn't be able to say anything that would make sense. He realised that the best thing for him to do now would be to head for Kagome's home and tell her grandfather and mother what had just happened. Old Mr Higurashi was a priest, and would know about mysterious things like strange people with impossible spiritual powers.

He hoped that at the same time, that young man with the green eyes would keep his word and find Kagome before something terrible happened to her.

...

"Hey, let me go! Ouch! You're hurting me!" Kagome protested.

She had no idea what had just happened. One moment, she had been there in the shop where she was supposed to meet a new paper supplier the shrine had never worked with before – except that she had refused to step inside because something was obviously off about the place, and that peculiar woman. Then the next moment, the woman had seized her, everything had vanished around them, and now she was in a strange building with this awful person who was twisting her arm so hard behind her that it felt like it would pop out of its socket.

"You don't remember me, do you?" the woman asked. "I know this disguise of mine looks a little more mature than the last time, but come on, I don't look _that_ different, do I?"

"I've never seen you before in my life!" Kagome gasped as her other arm was twisted behind her back, and her wrists bound. She was pushed into the middle of a circle drawn on the floor, and found, to her surprise, that she could not step over the border of the circle.

"What's happened to your powers?" the woman asked. "There I was getting ready to use all these spells my comrades and I had been thinking up to neutralise you, and call for backup and everything, but you had no powers that I could sense when I got near you. I could actually touch you without getting hurt. I still don't sense anything. You can't purify me, can you?"

"Powers? Purify? What _are_ you talking about?" the bewildered girl demanded, looking around her and feeling a cold fear creep over her as she saw that they were inside a windowless room lit by a single table lamp on a small folding desk in the corner nearest to her, with not a hint as to which part of the city she was in.

"You are the priestess Kagome, are you not?"

"I'm not a priestess!" she snapped, testing the border of the circle on the ground again and finding that her foot simply would not carry her over it. "You've got the wrong person!"

"But you are Kagome – the same Kagome who possessed the Shikon Jewel five hundred years ago."

"The _Shikon Jewel?_" she echoed in disbelief.

"Did you really destroy the jewel?" the woman asked. "Or does it still exist? Where is it?"

"There's no such thing as the Shikon Jewel," Kagome murmured, as it occurred to her that perhaps this woman was stark, raving mad. "Unless you mean those glass souvenirs my grandfather sells at the shrine."

"Something's not right," the woman muttered, turning her head towards the dark end of the room away from the lamp.

Kagome turned her head to look into the darkness, to see who the woman was talking to. But her eyes had not adjusted to the sudden change from bright afternoon outdoor light to this dimly lamplit room, and she could not make out a thing.

"Remove your disguise. Perhaps she will remember you better," came a man's voice from the darkness.

Kagome stared at the woman, wondering if she was going to remove a wig or even peel off a latex face mask the way they did in Hollywood spy movies. But to her utter astonishment, the entire woman went "pop" right before her eyes, and when the puff of smoke cleared, a terrifyingly large, fat and furry black-and-white creature stood on two legs before her, towering to a height of about seven feet, and entirely animal in its aspect, except for the vest and trousers it wore.

Her eyes widened to the size of saucers, but she couldn't even muster a scream, stunned as she was by what looked to her like an incredibly twisted magic trick.

"Remember me? Mujina?" the creature spoke in a very male voice, before starting to cough – a hoarse, hacking cough that echoed hollowly with age and lack of fitness. "The one who tricked the fox kit into taking the great sword's powers? I'm a hell of a lot older than I was back then – and I was already pretty old then, so stop giving me a hard time, will you?"

"You – you – you're not human, are you?" she gasped.

"Come on, priestess, you _know_ that I'm not human! Why the hell do you look so surprised?" the thing called Mujina snapped.

"I don't know _what_ you are!" she cried, both angry and very frightened now.

"What's wrong with you?" Mujina yelled back at her hoarsely. "Are you pretending to know nothing? Oh, come on – the priestess Kagome whose legend every demon knew about was a fearless thing who never backed down and never played dumb. Those who lived near your village said you died of old age, but they were obviously wrong. You're still alive, and still with your fox kit."

"You've got the wrong girl," the other voice suddenly came out of the darkness.

Kagome turned with trepidation towards the far end of the room again, and this time, saw a large shape moving out of the shadow into the light. It was another non-human creature just like the Mujina thing before her, except it was even taller and bigger, and had slightly different markings.

"What the hell do you mean, Hiro?" Mujina demanded. "It's her. You think I wouldn't remember _this_ priestess? I remember the whole of that dangerous band."

"It must be her reincarnation," the other creature said, furrowing his black brow. "A reincarnation with no powers, no memory of her predecessor, and who is of no use to us. The boss isn't going to be pleased about this."

"Her _reincarnation?_" Mujina snapped. "Are you serious? You _are_? So what do we do with her now? Kill her?"

"_Kill_ me?" Kagome squeaked. "What have I ever done to you?"

"You haven't _done_ anything, you silly little human," the one called Hiro growled. "You haven't done a thing, unlike the first Kagome. You've done nothing except be the _wrong girl_."

With that, the large beastlike thing raised a massive hand and shifted something in the elements around the girl, who suddenly found that she could stagger out of the circle drawn on the floor. She tripped over her feet, fell painfully as her hands were still tied behind her back, and tried to sit up only to see the two creatures bearing down on her.

"Take her back to the boss and see if he can still use her to get something out of the canine demons. She may not be the original priestess, but they obviously know she is her reincarnation, and are protecting her," Hiro said.

"Right," Mujina snarled, bending down and reaching for her.

"Don't touch me!" Kagome screamed, desperately trying to scramble away.

But Mujina closed his huge hand around her upper arm and hauled her roughly to her feet, making her cry out in pain as her joints were wrenched.

"Let go of me!" she yelled, really furious and terrified by now. "Let – GO!"

And suddenly, Mujina howled and released her before jumping back across half the room, at the same time as she felt a strange, glowing heat flare through her body.

"I thought you had no powers!" Hiro growled, moving towards her aggressively, yet looking cautious and wary for the first time.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she whispered, feeling as if her voice wouldn't emerge from her throat, so shocked was she by the flow of strength she was feeling from deep within her for the first time in her life.

"Use the spells we prepared to incapacitate her!" Hiro ordered Mujina. "She's been hiding her powers! Get her back to the boss now – he'll know what do with her."

Mujina, still nursing one huge, furry, clawed hand as if it had been burnt, lumbered towards her with a worried look on his face. He looked afraid of her. Still, he lifted his unhurt paw-hand and cast a spray of odd magical objects at her which spun circles around Kagome.

Their circling seemed to draw her budding strength from her, and she sank to her knees. She felt as if there was an envelope of humid air around her, something pressing against her, weakening her.

"Okay, she's safe to touch now," Mujina said. "You do it. My hand still hurts."

Hiro closed in on her, and she could only whisper: "No... no... don't..."

Just as he was about to seize her, a flare of light exploded within the room, and the two beastlike creatures stepped backwards as they realised that they had an intruder.

Through the haze of her weakening vision, Kagome saw a sight that both warmed her heart and frightened her, for it was Shippo there in that burst of light – Shippo, his eyes greener than she had ever seen them, hair redder than she had ever seen it, looking both beautiful and terrible.

And she knew in an instant that he was like the creatures who had abducted her – no, not exactly _like_ them, for he was obviously of a different... species? And certainly not _with_ them, for he was thrashing them now with a dreadful ferocity which told her that he was here to save her from them – but still, he was like them, purely in the sense that he was not like _her_.

"Get out of here!" Hiro ordered Mujina as all their tricks and defences failed to stop the intruder, and they were in danger of losing their lives.

In a puff of magic, both the large, lumbering creatures vanished to wherever they needed to go to get to safety, and only Shippo and Kagome were left in the room.

Kagome could not speak as Shippo – unearthly, glowing Shippo with his pointed ears and pointed fangs and sharp claws – strode up to her and knelt down before her to speak words that she almost couldn't understand, so dazed was she. He was saying: "I'm sorry, Kagome. I should have watched you more closely. And I'm sorry to have to show you my other form for the first time in circumstances like these. Forgive me."

She only stared back at him wordlessly, both because her head was swimming, and because she didn't know what to say.

He went on: "Let's get you out of here. I'll explain everything once you're safe. Don't purify me, now. Hold in your powers."

He worked what could only be a spell around her, immediately after which she felt released from the envelope that had been pressing in on her. He hardly needed to worry about her "powers", she thought, for she felt so weak that surely nothing was left in her of the strength from before. He slashed the rope binding her wrists with his claws, then gently helped her to her feet. But she swayed, and could barely remain upright. At once, he lifted her into his arms.

"It's just as well this way," he remarked, apparently with reference to his carrying her. "Because we're going through the portal I forced my way through to follow them here. I'm sorry that it took me a while to break their barriers, or I would have been here sooner. Don't be afraid. I'll keep you safe."

As the room disappeared around them, and he bore her through a strange passageway that seemed to whiz past them at the speed of light, she began to remember the myths and stories and tales her grandfather had told when she was growing up, of things that surely could never have existed. Those stories had stuck, somehow, although she had found them silly. And as the world sped past her, and she began to succumb to unconsciousness even as she gazed up in wonder at Shippo's beautiful face, one of those old terms from her grandfather's lips repeated itself over and over again in her head: _Youkai, youkai, youkai..._


	10. All Relative

**All Relative**

_It could be worse,_ Shippo thought ruefully, as he peeled the ofuda off his face and head.

"I'm sorry," he said to Kagome's grandfather, who had just flung those ofuda at him with the exclamation of "Demon begone!" Although he was technically the offended party, he was apologising to the old man because he felt bad for him that his talismans didn't work.

"Father!" Kagome's mother sighed, hurrying up to Shippo to help him remove the utterly ineffective strips of magical paper.

"But – but – he's a _demon!_" the old man spluttered.

"Yes, I am, but I mean no harm," Shippo tried to assure him.

"Demons always mean harm!" Mr Higurashi retorted.

"I promise you that I don't. As a matter of fact, we are somewhat related, although not by blood..."

"Aagh!" the old priest shouted, unable to accept the sacrilegious idea that he might be "somewhat" related to youkai.

"Father, please!" Kagome's mother was doing her best to calm the old man down. "Shippo saved Kagome from harm – possibly from death. He's a good person. I could tell from the moment I first met him. Now please, sit down and listen to what he has to say!"

To everyone's relief, Mr Higurashi only grumbled and muttered for about a minute more before settling back down in the living room, near where Kagome was resting against a pile of cushions.

"Shippo, I'm so sorry," Mrs Higurashi said kindly, removing another bit of stuck-on paper from his forehead. She paused in her work for a moment and looked closely at him. Then she did just what Inuyasha said she had also done to him when they first met – she took his pointy ears between her fingers and felt them as if she could hardly believe that they were real.

…

At first, everything had happened too quickly for him to worry much about her family's reaction. He had brought Kagome back out through the portal into the empty shophouse from which she had been seized, then rung Koga's team for emergency transport. He had no ready-made portal linking this street to the shrine, and could not possibly carry an unconscious girl onto public transport or on foot through the main streets without being stopped and questioned.

"What the hell happened to Kagome?" Koga yelled over the phone.

"Tanuki youkai," was all Shippo needed to say for Koga to understand. The wolf demon had been briefed by Inuyasha about the attempted intrusion into the computer system by the old raccoon-dog demon, and immediately put two and two together.

Koga had sent Ginta and Hakkaku out there with a car at once, to meet Shippo at the end of the lane he described. They had driven to the Higurashi shrine, and Shippo had advised them to leave while he took Kagome up the stairs to her family, because he would have enough explaining to do as it was.

Kagome was starting to come round as he climbed the steps to the shrine, but her head was spinning so hard that she could not open her eyes for more than a second. As Shippo bore her into her house, where Hojo was with Mrs Higurashi and Grandfather Higurashi, chaos erupted.

He had expected this sort of fluster. It was only the natural response to the reappearance of the girl whose disappearance Hojo had been frantically trying to make sense of while at the same time trying to explain it to her mother and grandfather. The young man's attempts to describe what he himself could not comprehend were of course getting nowhere, and the Higurashis were only growing more confused and worried.

Shippo had stepped in and calmly accounted for what Hojo had seen by saying that there was a hidden door in the shophouse that only trained magicians would know how to open.

"You're a _magician_?" Hojo had asked Shippo incredulously, looking at him with not a little envy, for he was the lucky male who had Kagome safe in his arms.

"Well, I know a trick or two," the fox demon had replied modestly.

He had laid Kagome down in the living room, on a futon that her mother quickly unfurled. The girl still could not open her eyes without seeing the room spin about her, but she was at ease, for she knew that she was at home, and could take comfort in feeling her mother's arms about her and hearing her grandfather's voice.

She made a vague, murmured remark about the "space tunnel thing" making her feel dizzy after the "spell", but fortunately, that was all she said about the portal and the tanuki youkai before she realised wisely that it would be best to say nothing more specific about her experience while Hojo was present.

She was still feeling the multiple effects of exerting her priestess' powers for the first time in her life, under such frightening and bewildering circumstances as her abduction by a pair of tanuki youkai. Not only that, she had had a binding spell cast on her by the tanuki, then Shippo had borne her back through a portal he'd forced open. Travelling the wrong way through a portal primarily designed to be a one-way passage was never a pleasant experience, especially if one was human, and doing it for the first time. That she had been knocked out for only twenty minutes or so was testament to her budding spiritual strength, thought Shippo. An ordinary human would have been rendered unconscious for at least a few hours.

She did not contradict Shippo at all as he spoke of magic tricks and magicians up to mischief. But when Hojo suggested taking her to the hospital, she had immediately declined, saying that she only needed a bit of time for her head to stop spinning – she was feeling better already. Then she asked: "What time is it now?"

"Almost three o'clock," her mother answered.

"Almost three? Hojo, don't you have a tutorial to attend?" Kagome asked, still holding her right hand over her eyes.

"Goodness, yes I do!" the young man exclaimed, jumping to his feet in alarm. "I've missed the two o'clock lecture, which is all right, but I must attend the tutorial! Are you sure you're all right, Kagome? You're not hurt?"

"I'm not hurt – I'll be perfectly fine after a short rest."

"If you're sure, I'll be going – but I'll visit you tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay. Thank you so much for all your help, and I'm so sorry for making you worry."

"Not at all. I must go now." He bowed to all of them, gave Shippo one more curious glance, and hurried out of the house and down to the street to catch a cab so he could rush back to campus.

The moment he was gone, Kagome asked for a drink of water. Her mother quickly brought her a glass, and had to hold it for her while she drank, because her left arm was still hurting from where the racoon demons had almost wrenched it out of joint, while her right hand was shaking. She then tried to sit up and open her eyes again. She managed to sit upright without feeling faint, but still had a sense of vertigo when she tried to look around her.

"It will take a while to subside," Shippo advised her.

"Shippo, what actually happened to Kagome?" Mrs Higurashi asked him, looking at him with kind brown eyes that told him she knew something more had happened than what he had described while Hojo was here.

"Kagome was kidnapped by two individuals who thought she was someone else," he answered honestly.

"Who did they think she was?" her mother asked in surprise.

"This will be hard to understand, but I am simply going to state the facts: the ones who abducted her believed that she was the first priestess Kagome, who died more than four hundred years ago."

"_What?_" the exclamation came from both her grandfather and mother.

"They thought she was the first Kagome, and seized her because they wanted her powers, and information. It took them some time to realise that she was not the same person as the one they sought," he elaborated.

"But the first Kagome died all those hundreds of years ago!" Mrs Higurashi said in bewilderment. "Why would _anyone_ think she would still be alive?"

"Again, this is probably going to sound to you like the words of a mad man, but please bear with me," Shippo said earnestly. "Those who met the first Kagome hundreds of years ago, and who did not see her age and die, would easily have mistaken your daughter for her, because they look exactly alike, and have precisely the same spiritual aura. I believe that your daughter may be the reincarnation of the first priestess, after whom she was named."

It would be far, far too complicated right now to explain the matter of the divided time streams. The reincarnation explanation alone would be hard enough for the humans to cope with. And it was probably accurate – this girl most likely _was_ the reincarnation of the first Kagome, or at the very least, another reincarnation of Kikyo.

"But _no one_ who knew the first Kagome would still be alive today!" Mrs Higurashi protested.

"They would be if they were youkai," Shippo said simply.

"Are you saying that my granddaughter was kidnapped by _youkai_?" Mr Higurashi gasped. "I _knew_ it! I _knew_ those creatures still existed in this day and age!"

"Father, please!" Mrs Higurashi pleaded. "Shippo, I don't understand. _Demons_ kidnapped Kagome? And you know all this because..."

Kagome was starting to peel her eyes open now. Shippo could see from the look in their melting chocolate depths that they were still seeing the world go round, but she could not keep them shut any longer because of the topic under discussion. She focused those eyes on him the best she could, and saw that he had resumed his human disguise.

"Kagome, may I show your family?" he asked her softly.

She looked deep into his green eyes for the longest time, making him want to smile because she was practically going cross-eyed from trying to fix her gaze on him. But at last, she nodded.

He turned back to her mother and grandfather, bowed apologetically to them from where he sat on the cushion, and explained: "I know all this because I myself am youkai. I am a kitsune youkai, one who knew the first Kagome and loved her very much, because she was my adoptive mother."

He dropped his human disguise and revealed his bipedal demon form – his full-fox form would surely be much too much for them to handle right now – and predictably, they gasped and almost fell backwards in surprise. Mrs Higurashi, at least, was _purely_ surprised; Grandfather Higurashi was a different kettle of fish. His initial shock turned to a great deal of loud yelping, hopping and scrambling, and finally, the ofuda flung at Shippo's face with the command of "Demon begone!".

By the time Grandfather calmed down, and Mrs Higurashi had apologised, helped peel off the ofuda, and checked Shippo's ears, Kagome's temporary vertigo was fading. The vertigo, however, was almost replaced by a lightheadedness brought on by trying to suppress her helpless giggles at the look on Shippo's face as her grandfather first threw charmed slips of paper at him and squawked hysterically, and her mother tweaked his ears.

"Oh dear, I am so very sorry – I really should have asked permission first," Mrs Higurashi said abashedly when she realised she was rubbing his ears between her fingers and thumb. "It's just that they're so... pointy."

"Yes, they are," Shippo agreed politely.

"So the mother you were telling me about..." Kagome said softly. "The mother you said I looked like – was the first Kagome, the famous priestess of our family?"

"Yes," he answered. "You look exactly like her, which is not surprising if you are her reincarnation."

"How did a priestess come to adopt a demon child?" Mrs Higurashi asked.

"My mother was an amazingly kind-hearted woman," Shippo explained. "She had a heart for everyone, human and demon. And your branch of the family will not have any records of this, but she married a powerful half-demon, and _all_ her blood descendants are part-demon. Some, like yourselves, are much more human than others because your branch only married humans over the years, and rejected your youkai history so long ago that we almost lost touch with you centuries before. But Kagome's mate – or her husband, if you prefer – was the one who never lost track of you. I only discovered – or shall I say rediscovered – you a few years ago."

"I'm descended from a _half-demon_?" Grandfather Higurashi cried, aghast. "But – but – I'm a _priest_!"

"The first Kagome showed me, and showed all of us, that spiritual powers were not incompatible with an acceptance of demons," Shippo said kindly. "I hope you will not be too unhappy about this for too long. My mother would not have wanted _any_ of her descendants by birth or adoption to be unhappy."

"So... what does that make _you_?" Grandfather Higurashi snapped in confusion. "My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grand-uncle?"

Shippo blanched, Kagome started, and Mrs Higurashi gulped.

"Well, as I was adopted, perhaps we can just think of me as a very distant cousin?" Shippo proposed optimistically.

...

In the end, Kagome did have to go to the hospital, because her left arm was hurting so much that she could barely move it. Shippo, his human disguise back on, accompanied the Higurashis there, where they were joined by Kagome's brother, Sota. The boy, now almost fifteen years old, had rushed to the hospital the moment he received his mother's text message – which she had timed to reach him only when she knew his last class had ended.

He was a rather quiet teenager, and said very little to Shippo while they waited to see the doctor. He only asked his Nee-chan how she had managed to hurt her arm so badly.

"I'll tell you the whole story later," Kagome promised. "But the short version of the tale is that I was kidnapped, and Shippo saved me."

Sota turned eyes as wide as saucers on the red-haired, green-eyed fellow sitting beside them, and Shippo could not resist remarking: "I shouldn't have let your sister out of my sight to begin with, once we knew about those evil conspirators who were trying to take over the world."

With her good hand, Kagome smacked Shippo on the arm to shut him up, and he smiled at her. The interplay made Sota's eyes widen even more. He turned to look questioningly at his grandfather, but the old man only muttered that he was very confused, and that if he wanted answers, he should get them from the horse's mouth. The 'horse' being Shippo, naturally.

When Kagome and her mother were finally called into the doctor's consulting room, the boy thus turned to the fox-horse and asked with a mixture of amazement and curiosity: "Are you my Nee-chan's _boyfriend_?"

Shippo, slightly puzzled by the incredulity in the young fellow's voice, asked equally curiously in return: "Why do you ask that question as if you have trouble believing that you're even asking it?"

"Well..." Sota said, lowering his voice. "For one thing, I've never seen or heard of you in my life."

"True."

"...so I don't know why you're saying that you should never have let her out of your sight."

"Good point."

"And Nee-chan's had boys pursuing her since middle school, but she's never shown the slightest interest in _any_ of them. So unless you're some kind of government spy or bodyguard and she's got herself mixed up in international espionage affairs, I really don't know what you're doing here. Who _are_ you?"

"I'm really a distant cousin of your family," Shippo said cheerfully.

As expected, Sota's eyes grew to comical proportions as Grandfather Higurashi snapped: "I can't believe we're related to those... those... _creatures_!"

Staring from Shippo's rather Caucasian features to his grandfather's baffled, scowling face, Shippo asked in complete bewilderment: "Our family's _mixed-race_?"

Grandfather only sighed heavily as Shippo laughed, and poor Sota still had no answers.

...

An X-ray showed that nothing was broken, but a careful physical examination of the limb suggested that Kagome had twisted and probably partially torn some muscle tissue and ligaments. Her arm was put in a splint to keep it positioned for the soft tissues to heal correctly, and she was advised that she should neither move the limb too much, nor keep it too immobile. A gentle balance must be struck for a smooth recovery, but she was not to lift heavy items with the arm, raise it above her head, or even perform actions like opening doors with it.

She was prescribed some mild painkillers, and given instructions about light exercises she could do to keep the blood circulating healthily in her injured arm once she was able to move her fingers and wrist without pain. They paid up, and Shippo rang for a special five-seater cab that they could all get into. The driver was in fact Koga in disguise, but Shippo was not about to present the Higurashi family with another shocking introduction to the former, ardent suitor of the late priestess, so both demons kept quiet about knowing each other.

Kagome's mother almost refused to let Shippo pay the cab fare, but the fox demon stood his ground, insisting that it was his fault that Kagome had been hurt. She finally relented, and bowed to thank him before stepping back to let him settle the fare with the driver.

A nod between Koga and Shippo as they were exchanging cash told the fox demon that Koga's people were around, and would be near the shrine as well as shadowing the Higurashis for their protection, until they could eliminate the tanuki threat.

When Koga drove off, Shippo turned back towards the stairs. Mrs Higurashi was waiting to walk him back up to the shrine. Kagome, assisted by Sota, was already at the top of the stairs and being greeted by Buyo the cat.

"Don't trip me up now, Buyo," she warned. But Sota had her right arm, and would not let his sister fall.

When they were all back inside the house, it was time to tell Sota the truth about his family, and Shippo's identity. He was shocked, as everyone expected him to be. But he definitely took it much better than his grandfather had, and Shippo was grateful not to have more ofuda flung at him by the teenage trainee priest.

"So... I _really_ have some demon blood in me?" Sota asked.

"Yes."

"Cool."

"We must keep quiet about it, though, for obvious reasons," Shippo said. "It would be hard for normal humans to accept, or to believe."

"And those powers I felt when those demons tried to take me to their leader... what happened there?" Kagome asked.

"You are a natural priestess, although you may never have thought of yourself as one. You are descended from, and probably the reincarnation of, one of the most powerful Shinto priestesses in history. Although you have a tiny amount of demon blood in your veins, your mostly-human ancestors over the generations married into and amongst families of priests and priestesses, so I am not surprised that you have always had latent powers. They finally emerged at a time when you faced serious danger from the tanuki youkai."

"Who is the leader they wanted to take me to?" Kagome asked. "Do you know?"

"I'm afraid we don't know that yet. We have identified one of the individuals who seized you – the one disguised as the woman. But we don't know his associates, or who is leading them. Youkai tribes are organised much more loosely in this day and age. It is possible that their leader may not even be a tanuki youkai."

"They asked me about the Shikon Jewel – what was all that about?"

"The first Kagome was the priestess whose unselfishness, love and wisdom made the Shikon Jewel disappear from the world, and from all future cycles of reincarnation. She was born with the jewel inside her, you see, and she was destined to end its existence. Your grandfather has surely told you legends about the jewel, how powerful and yet corruptible it was, and how the only hope for humans and demons alike was for it to be destroyed. No one had ever been able to destroy the jewel before then – but the first Kagome wished it out of the world forever. I can only imagine that the tanuki were not sure what had happened to the jewel, and thought that only Kagome and her pack would know the truth. They couldn't get to us, so they snatched you. I ought to have foreseen that something like this might happen. After all, we found you, so why not other demons as well? I should have watched over you more closely."

"Were you supposed to watch over me?" Kagome asked softly. "Was that your assignment?"

"My assignment...?" Shippo began, puzzled, before he realised that she was actually asking if he had been instructed by someone higher up to make her acquaintance. "Oh, you mean... no, Kagome. No, I wasn't 'assigned' to you. I watched you out of pure curiosity at first because you were so very much like the first Kagome. But I quickly realised that you were a completely different person from who she was, and when I made your acquaintance, it was because I wanted to know _you_. I wanted to know you for who _you_ are. It was no assignment, I can promise you that."

He spoke so earnestly that her cheeks flushed, and she had to look down at the floor for a moment. He yearned to have some time alone with her, to explain things more clearly, and perhaps eventually broach the matter of the separate time streams... but just talking about reincarnation and youkai was challenging enough as it was – and perhaps he was already in trouble with Sesshomaru and Inuyasha, who had not authorised him to tell the Higurashis about their ancestry...

No. Even if his fathers were angry with him, he would stand firm. The Higurashis deserved to know the truth. And Kagome certainly deserved a real explanation rather than a spell to erase her memory of her encounter with the tanuki and Shippo's demon form, which Koga's team would have performed on any other humans who had discovered the truth about the youkai among them.

"Kagome," he said firmly. "I wanted to know you for who you are, and I've not been disappointed."

She looked up at him, her huge eyes shining.

"I shall have to report this whole matter to my fathers now. They will decide what to do next. In the meantime, our people are watching this shrine, so do not worry about the tanuki demons coming back for you. They won't get past us."

"Your fathers?" Kagome echoed. "How many do you have?"

"Two adoptive ones," he replied. "It's complicated, but I will explain it all in time."

"Is one of them the mate of the first Kagome?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, an odd feeling springing up in his chest as he remembered Koga's remark during their meeting at the cafe: _She'd probably just fall in love with Inuyasha all over again – they were fated to be together._

"Will we get to meet him? He is our ancestor, isn't he?" she asked.

"He is your ancestor. I have no doubt that he would be very willing to meet all of you, once he learns that you know your history and are eager to see him."

_And when you do see him, what will happen?_ Shippo wondered.


	11. Filling In The Gaps

**Filling In The Gaps**

"I still can't believe you told them everything," Inuyasha snapped, pacing the living room of their home.

The hanyou was nervous, for this was the day appointed for him and Sesshomaru to visit the Higurashi family at the shrine. The other children had been informed about what had happened, and were eager to meet their mother's reincarnation; but Sesshomaru and Inuyasha had decided that it would be less overwhelming for Kagome and her family to meet just the two of them first, in Shippo's company.

"I didn't tell them _everything_," Shippo clarified once more. "I didn't breathe a word about the two threads of parallel time. They still don't know that our Kagome was originally from their time in an almost identical world that has been separated from this one. I only said they were descended from you, and that this Kagome is the reincarnation of the first Kagome – which we have agreed she probably is."

"Yes, but did you have to tell them _now_? I'm not prepared for this..." Inuyasha sighed.

"You've been wishing that we could get Michi and her descendants back into the fold for some four hundred years now. This is the time."

"Michi wanted nothing to do with us. What if this Higurashi family realises that they don't want to be associated with us too?"

"How likely is that?" Shippo asked. "You know what Kagome's like."

"What is done is done," Sesshomaru stated practically. "If they accept us, they return to the family. If they do not, we will offer them the opportunity to have these recent episodes erased from their memory with spells."

"When do we leave?" Inuyasha asked again, although he knew the answer perfectly well.

Patiently, Shippo repeated: "We're not expected till eleven. It's early yet."

"Hmm."

Inuyasha was of course already dressed, and had been physically ready for hours. His emotional preparedness was a different matter. Besides worrying about how this Higurashi family would receive them, he was also concerned about Sesshomaru's reaction to seeing him interacting with another Kagome again, and how the girl would regard them all.

Then there was Shippo. His fox-demon son knew this Kagome better than the rest of them did, and was obviously growing friendly with her in a way that was different from his relationship with his adoptive mother.

Inuyasha hoped with all his heart that whatever he did from this point on would not in any way, shape or form mess up Shippo's life.

...

Kagome was nervous. She knew that the rest of her family was just as much on tenterhooks as she was, but they were going through the simple mixture of anticipation and dread of meeting demons from whom they were descended, or to whom they were related in some way. Theirs was the nervousness of encountering hitherto unknown entities who could reveal many things about their family from centuries back, unearthing facts and filling in gaps they had long thought were beyond their reach.

Her nervousness, however, had to do with knowing that she was about to meet the half-demon who had been the husband and mate of the woman she was a reincarnation of. In other words, he had been her husband in another life. At the same time, he was also an ancestor of hers... it was too mind-boggling to dwell on in detail, for everything seemed to twist back in on itself like an infinite loop.

"What's he like?" she had asked Shippo only yesterday.

"Inuyasha is... well, he's like no one else," Shippo had answered.

"That's not very helpful," she'd sighed.

"You'll like him," he had assured her.

"Is he anything like you?"

"Like me? We were similarly snappish and short-tempered when we were both a lot younger, but _I_ grew up, while _he_ remained snappish and short-tempered," Shippo had joked.

"And you think I would get along with someone like that?" Kagome had fired back, eyes wide.

"You did the first time round – after days of hating each other, from what I was told."

"Oh dear, I don't think this is going to turn out very well. And you haven't mentioned his older brother yet – what did you say his real name was again?"

"Sesshomaru. He's something else altogether. He used to hate us all, and tried to kill Inuyasha more times than I can count. He tried to kill the first Kagome too, the very first time they met. But he's mellowed a lot. Really. A _lot_."

"_Why_ am I related to these people?" she had groaned, after searching his green eyes for a whole fifteen seconds in the hopes that he was joking about this Sesshomaru alias Daitaro Souga person, only to realise that he was completely serious.

"Kagome, it will be fine," Shippo had said to her, with a steadiness and calmness that imparted itself to her as he squeezed her hand lightly. "You will be just fine."

"Will _you_ be fine?" was her unexpected question.

"Why wouldn't I?"

"If things don't go well... if we don't get along, you'll be in an awkward spot. I wouldn't dream of asking you to go against your father – or your two fathers, as you call them – but I do want you to always be friends with my family, and with me."

"You couldn't get rid of me if you tried."

That had been yesterday. Today, as Kagome paced her room, wearing her most presentable skirt-and-sweater set, she wondered how everything would turn out. A notice had been put up downstairs that visitors to the shrine were welcome, but the souvenir shop would be closed for today, and the shrinekeepers unavailable because of a private event. Mama was downstairs making sure that the stew in the slow cooker was coming along well; Grandfather was fussing over every corner of the house, torn between welcoming his expected ancestor-visitors and arming himself with just-in-case ofuda; and Sota was calmly doing some homework although it was a Sunday.

"They're here!" came Grandfather's sudden cry.

Kagome felt the butterflies in her tummy – no, not butterflies, more like hummingbirds going wild inside her. She walked downstairs to the hallway, full of trepidation. Her grandfather and mother were already outside the house, bowing to the visitors and inviting them in. She and Sota stood in the hallway and bowed as the two men – no, not men, but demon males –stepped inside after slipping off their shoes at the door.

They were disguised as humans, but retained the colour of what Shippo had told her were their naturally silver hair and golden eyes, which pierced her keenly, as if searching her entire being for signs of weaknesses, or failings, or perhaps signs of things they had known for ages past. They were dressed impeccably, in beautifully cut grey jackets, white shirts and dark trousers, and both of them were tall – Sesshomaru, especially, towered over the humans.

She felt slightly intimidated by them, and it was of the greatest relief to her when Shippo entered the house a moment after they did, and smiled reassuringly at her. She was further put at ease when the shorter of the two silver-haired males stepped up to her and said warmly: "Hey, don't look so scared of us – your ancestress wasn't afraid of a thing, not even this murderous dolt standing behind me."

He meant Sesshomaru, who continued to present an admirably calm, stoic front.

Kagome gulped out: "I'm sorry that I'm not as courageous as she was, but I hope I am not a disappointment to you as your descendant."

"Kagome Higurashi a disappointment? Not likely," the half-demon had said. "Want to see what I really look like?"

"Oh, yes, please!"

"Sesshomaru?" Inuyasha turned to his brother for agreement.

The taller dog demon nodded, and in a trice, the spells were off. Sesshomaru was the more immediately striking of the two, with his knee-length platinum hair, facial markings, predatory eyes of gold, and a massive length of white fur curled over one shoulder. But it was Inuyasha that Kagome could not tear her eyes away from, for the dog ears on top of his head of thick, cotton-white hair were too adorable for words, and his wide golden eyes were mischievous, but kind.

And as she gazed at him, she felt all the mysterious emotions of loss and disconnectedness that she had sensed since her fifteenth birthday dissipate into the ether, for she suddenly understood that this was where she had come from – this was her history standing before her, this was the past and the beginning of a different life. The gaps closed up, and things long disjointed began to click into place.

She smiled with delight and relief, and he grinned back at her.

Over cups of tea as they knelt or sat on tatami mats in the living room, then over the simple but delicious lunch of beef stew and rice in the dining area, Inuyasha, Sesshomaru and Shippo told the Higurashi family about Inuyasha's great-great-granddaughter, Michi, who had turned her back on her youkai ancestry for good, and left her descendants bereft of that vital part of their history.

"But I watched your branch of the family from afar," Inuyasha said. "I never lost track of where my people were, or who was born to whom. I didn't tell Shippo or our other children about that, because I didn't want them to think there might be hope of a reunion. Especially since from Michi's husband onwards, this became a family of priests and priestesses, most of whom had no fondness for demons, to put it lightly."

"I'm not sure that has _completely_ changed," Sota remarked, with a sideway glance at his nervous grandfather.

"I don't expect a lifetime of distrust to be erased overnight," Inuyasha laughed. "But I hope to show, over time, that the youkai and hanyou of our pack bear no ill-will to humans. We have been living quietly in human society for a few centuries now, and have long been well-integrated with those branches of our family that are much more human than youkai."

"So our line of the family is descended from you, Inuyasha-san, and the first Kagome?" Sota asked.

"Yes," Inuyasha confirmed, thinking fondly back to the Sota he had known in the other stream of time, and wondering how life had turned out for that other boy.

"Are Sesshomaru-san's descendants more demon than human, then?" the teenager asked, still somewhat in awe of the imposing youkai with the crescent marking, stripes, and masses of fur.

With a gentleness and openness that was still surprising to Shippo, and would have been surprising to anyone who had known the Sesshomaru of centuries ago, the taiyoukai replied: "I consider all of Inuyasha's descendants my own, and Inuyasha considers all of my descendants his own. We make no distinction between them, or between them and the children we adopted, both demon and human. In any case, many of our lines inter-mated over the years. Not one of our descendants today is either pure demon or pure human. We are one pack."

That was when Kagome decided that this Sesshomaru person wasn't such a scary guy after all. She sighed contentedly, and Shippo caught her eye and winked at her.

...

Later, the Higurashi family showed the demons and half-demon around the shrine compound. The visitors in turn pointed out where old landmarks had stood, and where the forested path had been that had led from the Goshinboku tree towards the village where Inuyasha had lived with the first Kagome.

Shippo of course had done most of his growing up in that village, and had many little anecdotes to tell – although all three visitors steered clear of mentioning the significance of the Bone Eater's Well, for no one was quite ready to launch into a detailed explanation yet about severed timelines and a time-travelling schoolgirl from an alternate modern world.

At one point, Kagome and Inuyasha were alone under the Goshinboku tree, staring up into its thick, leafy crown. The hanyou turned to the girl and said: "This was where she first saw me, sealed to the tree for fifty years by a sacred arrow fired by the priestess Kikyo. Shippo may not have told you this, but the first Kagome was herself a reincarnation of Kikyo, and I loved them both."

"You loved this Kikyo, but she sealed you to this tree?" Kagome asked in wonder, touching the scar on the trunk that Inuyasha indicated to her when he spoke of the arrow.

"It was a terrible misunderstanding engineered by a wicked spider half-demon, Naraku. It's a long and complicated story, but in the end, everyone involved learnt the truth, and everyone found peace before he or she died. Even Naraku."

"I would love to hear the whole story one day."

"One day," he promised.

"I wonder why I felt a deep connection with this tree only from my fifteenth birthday onwards. Why at that particular time? Was there some significance in that age? That date?"

"The first Kagome's fifteenth birthday was the day she saw me, here, under this tree," said Inuyasha.

"Oh," Kagome whispered. "Maybe that's why I..."

She didn't know how to continue. _Maybe that's why I felt I had missed a destiny meant for me. Why I felt I ought to know something, but could not identify what it was...? _

But saying that didn't seem right. It would seem as if she was suggesting that Inuyasha was her destiny, when she didn't really feel that way at all. He may have been her husband in another life, but right now, he was her ancestor, someone she felt linked to in a special way – but not in _that_ kind of special way.

Without even realising she was doing so, she instinctively looked around for Shippo, to find some reassurance in his bright green eyes. He was near the Bone Eater's Well, with her mother and brother, and he looked up at her just as she sought him. Her heart leapt.

The exchange of looks did not escape Inuyasha, who grinned and beckoned Shippo over to them. As the fox demon approached, the hanyou said to the Kagome: "When I first awoke from my fifty-year sleep and looked into the first Kagome's eyes, I thought she was Kikyo. She looked _exactly_ like her. But once I got to know her, I quickly realised that she was nothing like Kikyo, and after that, I wondered how I, or anyone, could ever have thought that they were anything alike. She may have been Kikyo's reincarnation, but she was _not_ Kikyo. And you may be her reincarnation, but you are not her. You're someone else. The first Kagome always insisted that she was someone very different from Kikyo, and all of us who knew them both learnt how true that was. So don't be afraid that I'll mix you up with her. You're my great-great-great-great-great-and-add-all-the-other-'greats'-I've-missed-out-granddaughter, and a very special one too, but that's all."

So saying, he leant forward, kissed her on the forehead, grinned at her again, and walked away from the tree with a parting shot to Shippo: "Over to you, runt."


	12. Here And Now

**Here And Now**

"How did I acquire such fools as my followers?" sighed the person who sat behind the desk in the largest office of a company that primarily dealt with the publishing of books about handicrafts, and also made and sold luxurious, exclusive origami paper.

"But Boss, you said you wanted the Shikon jewel and the great sword and whatever other powers the inu pack possessed!" Mujina squawked.

The dark-haired male sighed again and rested his chin on one fair and elegant hand. "I said I wanted to know what had become of those things, and to discover if there was any way we might be able to use them if the inuyoukai were no longer in possession of them. I did not say that I wanted you to steal them, or worse, to abduct the priestess!"

"Boss," growled Hiro. "What's the use of finding out about such things unless we're going to take them? We can't dominate other youkai groups without greater power."

"Dear me, have you been asleep for the past five hundred years?" the elegant demon asked ironically. "Have you not realised by now that in this day and age, dominating other groups – whether youkai or ningen – is a matter of gaining more wealth and influence than others of our political or social strata, then scaling to the next level, and so on? Power is no longer about demon swords and cursed jewels. I was curious about the fate of those items because they were so closely tied to all that happened to me, and to the outcomes of many lives. Those things destroyed me once, but I believe they were also the reason that I was returned to this world, although I do not know how or why. If they were lost to the inu pack, I wanted to take proper care of them and not allow them to fall into other hands, and to find out if they held clues to why I was returned to this dimension. But if they are still with their rightful owners, then they should be left where they are."

"But..." Hiro began again, only to be cut off.

"Hiro, Hiro, Hiro," said the demon. "You must have heard that saying often used by English speakers: 'Let sleeping dogs lie'?"

"Yes, but..."

"_These_ dogs, in particular, really should not be awoken by us. I can only hope that they don't hunt us down now."

With another sigh and a shake of his head, Byakuya of the Dreams dismissed the two tanuki demons from his office and went back to surfing the Internet to keep an eye on what his business competitors were up to these days.

After a half-hour of that, however, it occurred to him to wonder just how the priestess Kagome had survived so long, why he had not heard about her for some four hundred years before her sudden reappearance, and whether she would be able to tell him more about how he had been spared the fate of eternal death in the meidou five hundred years ago.

...

Kagome didn't know what to say. The three part-demons who sat in a row on the sofa facing the armchair she was ensconced in, across the coffee table, were gazing at her in wonder. They had been looking at her with those wondering golden eyes during every pause in the conversation, even though the conversation had been going on for half an hour already. They were in the living room of Sesshomaru's and Inuyasha's sprawling house on the outskirts of Tokyo. The two fathers were not in, and Shippo was in another room, for they had wished to leave the children to meet their mother's reincarnation in private.

"I'm so sorry!" the female named Tamatsuki exclaimed when she realised she had been staring at the girl. "This must be very awkward for you. But you have no idea how much this means to us – you look exactly like Mama. We all miss her so much..."

"Please don't apologise," Kagome replied quickly. "I'm sure the way I look brings back a lot of memories for you. Your two fathers and Shippo have told me how much I look like her."

"You are our mother's reincarnation. Of course you look like her. You have her exact scent too, and if I am sensing it correctly, you have her powers as well," said one of the two males, Hikage, the eldest of the three surviving children born to the first Kagome.

The other male, Shirakori, the youngest of the three, nodded.

All three wore their human disguises. Kagome was not sure why they had chosen to meet her in their spelled forms – she had already seen Inuyasha, Sesshomaru and Shippo in their anthropomorphic demon forms. But even in these shapes, she could see the children's dog-demon heritage in their silver hair and golden eyes.

"If only Hikaru were still with us," Tamatsuki remarked.

Kagome had learnt near the very start of the meeting that Hikaru was the fourth and youngest child of the priestess she was reincarnated from. But because he had been born much more human than demon, he had matured and aged much faster than his three blood-siblings, who had through the whimsical laws of genetics inherited a greater share of the powerful demon blood of the Inu no Taisho. Even so, because of that touch of demon blood in Hikaru, he had died a whole sixty years after his mother's passing, outliving his wife by a good forty years, and even burying some of his own grandchildren. She understood that it was his line from which she came, and felt some regret that she could not meet this ancestor of hers.

But these many-times-great uncles and aunt of hers were here, and it was fascinating to talk to them. Still, she feared she was a sad reminder to them of the mother they had lost while they were small.

"I wish I could return your mother to you in some way other than by resembling her," Kagome said softly. "I can't even bear to think of losing my mother even when _I'm_ old and she's ancient. So I don't know what it must have been like for you not to have your Mama with you any more, while you were only children. Shippo has explained to me how long it takes demons, and even many part-demons, to mature."

"It was hard," Hikage admitted. "When Mama passed away of old age, the three of us were no bigger than human children of five or six years old would be. But we were blessed. We had our fathers. Tou-chan – that's how we address Inuyasha-sama – was not as fortunate as we were. _We_ had him and Otou-sama – that would be Sesshomaru-sama – to raise us and protect us, but Tou-chan lost both his father and mother while he was still small, and had to look after himself. We were so much more sheltered than he was. Shippo, our Nii-chan, was very protective too."

"I'm glad you were loved and cared for," said Kagome. "Your mother must have felt deeply comforted to know that you would not have to suffer what her mate went through as a child."

"Oh, yes. She was at peace. She was sad to leave us, but we really wanted her to pass on peacefully," said Hikage with a smile. "Seeing you now – so good-hearted and gentle – only confirms for us that her soul was at peace when she departed. If she had been distressed, then surely you, her reincarnation, would not have such a calm spirit."

"Mama would have been delighted to know that her soul would return to the world again in so beautiful and gentle a shape," said Shirakori quietly.

Kagome stopped feeling self-conscious when she realised that this was about their memories of their mother, and not about her. She looked at all three of them in turn, and said: "Forgive me if you think this improper, or impertinent, but... I'd really like to hug you all."

To her alarm, Tamatsuki burst into tears. But before she could jump to her feet to bow and apologise profusely, the female half-demon quickly rounded the coffee table and wrapped her arms around her, followed by her brothers, who followed suit.

Kagome embraced them all, a girl in a huddle of half-dog-demons, and understood that this was just one small thing she could do for them – to simply stand there, and hold them, and let them pretend for a short minute or two that they were in their mother's arms again.

...

"That was a truly kind thing you did for my brothers and sister," Shippo said to Kagome afterwards, when he drove her back to the shrine. "But I am sorry if it made you feel again as if you were being mistaken for someone else, and that they weren't seeing you as _you_."

"There's plenty of time for them to come to see me as me. For today, for now, I'm happy to give them some tiny part of their mother, in what small way I can."

"Thank you, Kagome."

"Please don't mention it. By the way, I've noticed that you don't call Inuyasha Tou-chan like the others do."

Shippo chuckled. "He was Inuyasha to me from the start, and he remained Inuyasha throughout, even though in my heart, I fully regard him as my father. I couldn't call him Tou-chan, or Papa, or anything."

"But did you call the first Kagome 'Mama'?"

"Very rarely. She was also Kagome to me right from the start, and that was what I kept calling her even after she and Inuyasha adopted me. _Sometimes_, though, I would call her Mama, especially when she grew older."

"I didn't realise that 'Mama' was already in use for mothers in the feudal era. I always thought it was something more formal, like Haha-ue, or at the very least, Okaa-sama."

Shippo was silent for a couple of seconds, during which time Kagome got the impression he was thinking hard, rather than just focusing on the driving. He finally answered: "Your ancestress was a very unusual woman. You are right. 'Mama' wasn't exactly commonly used back then. But that was the first Kagome for you – different, you know. We addressed Sesshomaru and Inuyasha differently over the eras. We started out calling Sesshomaru 'Chichi-ue' in the feudal era, because he said that was how he had always addressed _his_ father. Inuyasha was a lot more casual – he always referred to their late father somewhat disrespectfully as 'Oyaji'! So the other children didn't try using Chichi-ue on _him_! He was 'Tou-san' to them. Then when society grew less traditional over the centuries, we used different terms of address. Now we all call Sesshomaru 'Otou-sama', they call Inuyasha 'Tou-chan', and he's still just Inuyasha to me. Only Rin – that was Sesshomaru's adopted human daughter – called Sesshomaru 'Sesshomaru-sama' all the way, and Inuyasha 'Inuyasha-sama' till the day she died, though he hated the 'sama' part."

"I think that's how I should address them from here on," Kagome decided. "Just like Rin did – Sesshomaru-sama and Inuyasha-sama."

"Sesshomaru will be fine with that, but Inuyasha will tell you off for adding the 'sama'. Don't say I haven't warned you."

"Oh, I'll survive his wrath," she laughed.

She felt a deep happiness about being a part of this pack. Even though she and her immediate family would not live as long as any of those with more demon blood would, she was determined to play a full role in their lives, as much as they would allow.

Shippo drove up near the shrine and found a space to park near the houses along the road below. Today's meeting with Kagome's birth-children had come nearly two weeks after Inuyasha's and Sesshomaru's first visit to this Higurashi family. They had all needed the time to gather up courage of a sort, discuss important details within each group. The inu pack had had to consider things like where the meeting would be best held; whether the three should show Kagome their half-demon selves or their more human looks; how much if anything should be revealed about where the first Kagome had come from; and to remind themselves that this girl was not their mother.

Kagome and her family had needed the time to decide if they should all go, or if only Kagome should; what to say to them to avoid causing them any kind of pain or offence; and whether to address the three as their elders, or as distant relations, the way they interacted with Shippo.

In that time, Shippo had been coming and going, visiting the Higurashis almost every day. Hojo had seen him too, picking Kagome up from the campus, and having coffee, tea or meals with her at some of the cafes and eateries that she liked going to. The boy was disappointed that Kagome seemed to be getting so close to another (apparently) young man not long after rejecting him, but there was really little he could do without coming across as a mad stalker. As for Grandpa Higurashi, he was becoming more accepting of the fact that he was descended from demons, but still sighed and muttered to himself occasionally when he saw Shippo.

This all meant that the place where Kagome and Shippo felt most at home was really the courtyard of the shrine – neither in town where Hojo or other friends might see them and wonder about them, nor in either of their family homes, under the eyes of their elders. They spent many hours in those two weeks just sitting and talking in that courtyard, under the Goshinboku tree, or in the shelter built over the Bone Eater's Well.

Today, Shippo leaned on the casing of the well as he often did, and alternated between looking directly at her as they talked, and gazing into the depths of the well.

"Why do you always seem to find the inside of this well so fascinating?" Kagome asked with a little chuckle that day.

"Huh," Shippo huffed with an awkward smile, thinking of what to say in reply. "This well was the place where... we would wait for the first Kagome. It was kind of a meeting place. While we waited, I'd spend ages just staring into it."

"Didn't you say this area was heavily forested in those days?" Kagome asked curiously. "Wouldn't you have preferred to look at the trees around the well rather than _into_ the well? Was there something fascinating at the bottom?"

"Apart from some ancient demon bones? No. I guess... I guess I was just strange," he said sheepishly. "I was really small then, so I used to hop up onto the well casing and just sit there and, um, look in."

"Didn't your Kagome live with you in the village, though? Why meet out here?"

"Oh, she moved permanently to the village only after she became Inuyasha's mate. Before that, she lived... elsewhere. For various complicated reasons, no one could visit her except Inuyasha. So whenever she went home, or when she and Inuyasha went off together, this would be where I'd wait. Miroku and Sango – you remember the human monk and taijiya I told you about? – would sometimes wait out here too, but they were mostly happy to hang around in the village with each other and with Kaede, the old priestess. I was less patient, and anyway, being a demon, I was more 'weather-proof' than they were. I didn't mind being out here in the rain or sun. There wasn't a well house in those days, you know. It was completely open to the elements."

"Inuyasha said that the Goshinboku tree was where he met her for the very first time. The tree's just across from here – but I guess in those days there would have been many other trees in between, right? So it looks like this little area has a lot of significance for you and your family."

"Yeah, it does."

They fell into a comfortable silence for a while, contemplating the depths of the well – which Shippo could see clearly with his demon eyes, and which to Kagome were just a square of darkness far below.

"I'm glad it's _you_ sharing this old space with me now," Shippo said simply, looking up from the well right into her eyes. "I couldn't think of anyone else I would rather be here with in this day and age."

She gazed back at him surprise, and felt the gentle swelling of a quiet pleasure within the depths of her being.

"There isn't another living being I would rather be here with than you," she answered, quietly but with perfect honesty.

He slid his left hand along the well casing and covered her right hand, which turned palm-up to clasp his in return.

He did not look into the depths of the well again for the rest of that day, for the one he had been waiting for was right there beside him.

* * *

**Note:** I apologise for the long wait between chapters for this fic. I know exactly what is supposed to happen in this story, and how it is supposed to end. But I'm having the darnedest time expressing those images and ideas in ways that are satisfactory to me!


	13. Age Difference

**Age Difference**

It was the most awkward thing.

Shippo had thought that the hardest part of the day would be getting Kagome to accept this date which would not be taking place in a restaurant or gourmet coffee joint or the shrine or the main inu family home, but in Shippo's very own Tokyo apartment.

Not that he had thought she would refuse. It was more a case of his not wanting her to imagine that he was asking her over to "his place" in that Western sense of the phrase, along with all its psychological weight relating to getting physically intimate with someone who could either be a casual fling, or a potential significant other.

What made it trickier was that he was truly keen to make more physical contact with her, to go beyond hand-holding and pecks on the cheek. But it was difficult, because he _liked_ her – he _really_ liked her – and even more than that, he wanted her in his life. If this shift towards something more romantic would jeopardise their closeness in any way, then he was ready to wait another month, another year, another ten years, just to be sure she wouldn't panic, or change her mind and back away, leaving them stiff and awkward with one another.

But she had welcomed the idea of seeing his apartment with every bit of her usual openness and cheerfulness, and everything had been going like a breeze. The sushi he prepared, the tea he brewed, the conversation... everything was fine and normal and not the least bit awkward.

And _then_ she had admired the pattern of the fine tea set, and he had failed to dissemble about its origins.

"It was a present from a fox demoness I used to be close to, Akane," he said without thinking.

"You're not close to her any more?" Kagome asked in genuine surprise. "It's an exquisite tea set, not a casual gift. You must have been very close at the time she gave it to you."

"We meet occasionally when the different packs we are on peaceable terms with meet up. But things are different now."

"What happened?"

"Well, she wanted to be my mate about three hundred years ago. I wasn't so keen. Things got rather chilly for a while because of that. But in the end, we parted on good terms."

"You've never had a mate?" she asked curiously.

"No," he admitted.

"All your inu siblings do, though?"

"Yes. They've all mated and had children of their own. And I'm the eldest too. They think I'm really picky."

"Are you? Is that the reason you've never chosen a mate? Through five hundred and seventy years of living?"

He flinched a little when she put it that way. Good heaven, he was _five hundred and seventy years old_, and she was... _nineteen_. Kami, she was an _infant_ compared with him. It was so hard to imagine that the first Kagome had come into his life when she was only fifteen, and she had seemed so mature and tall and motherly to him then. What would his perception of her be like now if he had the chance to go back in time?

_This_ girl was four years older than her predecessor had been then, yet she seemed so young beside him. But then humans and demons had such different rates of maturing, and such different lifespans, you couldn't really look at it in calendar years alone.

"I guess five hundred and seventy sounds positively ancient to you," he sighed. "But in demon years – especially in our pack, which is full of powerful youkai who can be expected to live for... oh, I don't know... another two thousand years... I'm considered quite young."

"You said before that demon, half-demon and human children grow at about the same rate for about the first four years of life?" she asked. "Then everything slows for the demons and half-demons? How much slower, exactly?"

"After the first four years, while our human friends keep growing into late childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, we're stuck at about the same size for decades. It's not an absolutely precise conversion, but roughly, a demon child after the age of four grows very little, sometimes not at all, for the next forty-six years or so. In other words, it takes a demon child about fifty years to get through the kind of growth that a human child would get through in four or five years. The species makes a difference. Kitsune youkai tend to be exceptionally small until they mature – I think I was the size of a toddler from the age of two till seventy-five! Anyway, it's very approximate, but it's safe to say that we age about four or five human years every fifty calendar years. At about two hundred years of age, a demon or powerful half-demon would be the equivalent of a sixteen-to-twenty-year-old human."

"Then it slows again."

"Yes. It varies with the species and youki strength of the demon or part-demon, but in our pack so far, what we've seen is that everyone from the age of about two hundred or so till about three hundred or so would seem about twenty to twenty-two in human years, and from three hundred or so till seven hundred or thereabouts – at least from Sesshomaru's experience – would be about twenty-five to thirty in human years. I'm still apparently at the twenty-five-year mark. Apparently. Although to _you_, I guess I would seem..."

"Oh, no, no, no," she said quickly. "You look very young to me. Kind of like how people think of several-hundred-year-old vampires as still really hot and youthful, you know?"

"Vampires?" Shippo echoed, seeing her logic in some way, but nonetheless a little thrown by the comparison between youkai and vampires. He marvelled at the way the popular image of seductive Western vampires had pervaded the consciousness of the fashionable young all over the world for decades now, starting from glossy Hollywood remakes of Bram Stoker's classic, to the Anne Rice series of novels, to much more recent teen fiction featuring the high-school-going undead.

That fleeting second in which he looked ever so slightly flummoxed did not escape her. "I suppose we're shallow, aren't we?" she asked ruefully. "Humans, I mean. If someone looks young, we perceive them as young, even when someone tacks on an absurdly impossible age to a youthful face, like 'two hundred and eighty'."

"Or five hundred and seventy."

"You're really not old at all – by demon standards – now that you've explained it to me more fully," she smiled warmly.

"It's a matter of perspective, isn't it?" he said. "Akane was about six hundred when she took an interest in me. She thought me dreadfully young at two hundred and seventy, but I didn't think it mattered that she was quite a lot older. I was every bit as experienced as she was, after all."

"Experienced?" Kagome asked. "You mean, as in...?"

That was when Shippo got the uneasy feeling that perhaps he should never have mentioned Akane, or any other female he had ever had a romantic liaison with.

"Well," he began slightly defensively. "I was two hundred and seventy, and I had spent most of my life in human villages. Human girls mature fast. You can't expect me not to have had _some_ of that sort of experience."

"N-noooo," she said a little hesitantly, her cheeks hinting at the start of a blush. "No, I didn't expect that you'd be totally inexperienced. I guess it's only just occurred to me what a _vast_ number of opportunities can be packed into five hundred and seventy years. I suppose that once you matured, you had your pick of both human and demon females?"

He couldn't be sure, but he thought there was an edge to her voice which hadn't been there before.

"Look, Kagome, it's not like I was sleeping with every female within a fifty-mile radius."

"Purely out of interest – roughly how many females might you have been, uhm, intimate with over the last... oh, four hundred years, give or take a few decades?" she asked, looking straight at him out of those huge brown eyes that he had never been able to resist – either in her predecessor, or in her.

"Oh, I don't know – it's not as if I keep a count!" he hedged. It really was the most awkward thing.

"I'm sure you have a rough idea," she pressed.

"Come on, Kagome, I don't have _notches_ on my bedposts!"

"A ballpark figure."

"I'd really rather not."

"Indulge me, please."

"Kagome–"

"Just tell me."

"Maybe about a hundred, I don't know..."

She stared, blinked, and stared some more. "One hundred?"

"What do you honestly expect, Kagome? I've been on this earth almost six centuries. I had this wild adolescent spurt stretching over more than fifty years, during which I more or less jumped at the chance to engage in physical exploration with anyone who was remotely interested. That was the period when I chalked up most of that count, which is hardly staggering by the standards of unmated demons. In the last three hundred years, there's only been Akane, one very brief encounter with a wolf demoness I don't know any more, and two humans."

"Do you still see those two humans?"

"They died of old age decades ago."

"Oh."

In their first interactions with one another, he had wished she was more confident, self-assured and feisty. Well, those shades of the first Kagome were certainly surfacing now, but the context in which they were emerging really was, well, awkward.

"I'm sorry if my past seems sordid to you," he sighed. "I'm not perfect, you know."

"No, you're not," she agreed, looking directly at him.

"I _know_ that. Which is why–"

"Which is why I'm glad you've told me about your women... or females, or whatever you call them," she said lightly. "I'm so glad to know that you're not perfect."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Because I've felt so very imperfect next to you since the moment we met," she smiled. "And I am _so_ pleased to know that you have warts and all."

_Oh._

"Hmm... did you know that I do in fact have an actual wart on my foot?" he asked, matching his tone to her subtle level of playfulness.

"Demons get warts?" she asked, raising her perfectly arched eyebrows.

"We certainly do. Except Sesshomaru-sama, of course. _He's_ flawless."

"He's stripey."

"I have a couple of stripes too, which didn't show up until I matured. They're not on my face like his are, though."

"Oh? Where are they?"

"Wouldn't you like to find out?"

"If that's the line you used on your _ex-girlfriends_ as a prelude to 'physical exploration', you'd better know here and now that it's not going to work on me."

"Damn," he said softly, with a mischievous smile, even as he leaned towards her over Akane's tea set and kissed her on the mouth.

Her eyes opened wide for a moment, then she lowered her eyelids and kissed him back, going by pure instinct and hoping she wasn't coming across as too naive, for she had never kissed a boy on the mouth before.

Shippo liked the taste of her lips, with their hints of vinegar from the rice, and the mellow warmth of green tea, and he didn't mind at all that she wasn't really sure how to proceed. She was so very young, and he would give her all the time she wanted and needed. He didn't mind taking it very, very slow.

Neither did he mind at all when, even while focusing on kissing him back, her left hand deftly reached out for a napkin and draped it over the tea set, blocking out anything that might possibly, at this juncture, give him a visual reminder of his ex-girlfriend, Akane the fox demoness.


	14. Differences

**Note:** Sorry for the long wait since the last chapter. I'm posting **two** chapters together today – I hope that makes up for it just a little (that is, if anyone is even reading this any more!).

* * *

**Differences**

"A little more to the right," Shippo murmured into Kagome's ear, his left hand nudging hers, his right lightly on her right arm.

"I thought I already _was_ a little more to the right," she murmured back, feeling a bead of perspiration form at her temple and threaten to roll down her face before getting soaked up by her fringe.

"A little more than that," Shippo prompted her.

A tiny sound in her throat told him she was tired, and had been holding it as long as she could, but he didn't want her to give up so easily.

"Now, try again," he told her, before stepping back and letting her fire the arrow all by herself.

She released the bow string, and the arrow flew across the large courtyard of the inuyoukai family home, right past the target set up at the other end.

"Ohhh," she groaned.

"You were on target when I adjusted your arms, but you shifted as you fired," Shippo told her.

"It was a little closer this time... wasn't it?" she asked, peering at the distant board.

"You were a little higher this time," Shippo said. "But you weren't any closer."

"No?" she sounded deflated.

"It just takes more practice, Kagome," Shippo assured her. "You can do it."

"It seemed so fun when we were talking about it," she sighed, the bow seeming to weigh a ton in her hands. "But it isn't really much fun at all."

"Maybe we should try using more modern equipment," Shippo mused, looking at the traditional arched wooden bow and string. "You'll find the bows of today easier to grip and handle..."

"I think they'd be pretty much the same. It's my aim that's the problem, not the kind of bow," she answered. "Besides, we agreed that I would start with the traditional bows and arrows before seeing how different they were from the modern ones."

"But if you would do better with improvements in design and technology..."

"I don't think I want to do this at all."

"Come on, let's try again."

"Maybe I just don't have the talent for it," she said.

"That's what your predecessor thought too, when she first met Inuyasha," Shippo revealed. "But she soon improved, and in no time at all, she could hit anything within the reach of her weapon – even a tiny crystal hidden deep in the body of a raging monster."

"Maybe I'm not like her."

"You're exactly like her."

"Maybe I'm _not_," she replied, a definite edge to her voice.

"You are her reincarnation, so I believe you can do this," Shippo pressed.

"Well, I don't," she snapped, putting the bow down on the stone bench near her, unslinging the quiver of arrows and setting it beside the bow, and walking away from the courtyard.

"Kagome, this is the kind of thing you'll love once you become better at it."

"_Your_ Kagome, maybe. But not me."

As the girl disappeared into the house, Shippo started to go after her, then stopped himself and picked up the discarded bow and arrows. Holding a bunch of arrows between the fingers of his right hand, he fired them off one after the other in quick succession. Every one of them hit the centre of the target.

He knew that Kagome was annoyed with him because she thought he was comparing her to the first Kagome and expecting her to be like her ancestress. In a way, he was. But it wasn't what she was thinking.

_How do I explain to her that I no longer fear comparing her to my mother precisely because I have become absolutely clear in my mind and heart that she is not her? How do I tell her that I hope she will discover how much she is similar to my Mama not because I want her to replace the adoptive mother and friend I lost, but because I am convinced that she will never be completely fulfilled until she grasps the destiny that she feels has passed her by?_

Maybe someone else should teach her, Shippo thought. It was never easy for anyone to train someone they were courting, in any field of expertise. The other party always took it more personally when a mate, lover or date was hard on them than if it was someone else they saw purely as a teacher.

...

From a corner of the house where he could see the courtyard, Inuyasha watched Shippo and Kagome practising with the arrows, heard every word of the spat with his sharp dog-ears, and sensed the friction and prickliness in the exchange.

He knew how this Kagome felt. He remembered how he had pressured his Kagome to discover her archery abilities out of nowhere when they had only just met, and were pursuing the crow-demon that had stolen the Shikon jewel.

"Kikyo was a master archer!" was the taunt he had thrown at her when she had protested that she had never even held a bow before.

"I told you, I'm _Kagome_!" she had shouted back.

She had then done everything she could to hit the crow demon, and the terrible mishap had occurred. The Shikon jewel had shattered into thousands of pieces and scattered everywhere, and they had spent a full year trying to recover every fragment.

If not for that enforced togetherness, perhaps they would never have fallen in love – so ultimately, the mishap turned out to be a good thing, thought Inuyasha with a wistful smile.

Now, he could see the growing closeness between this young descendant of his and Kagome's, and their adopted son. He could see how certain Shippo had become about the distinction between the first Kagome and the second, and he understood that his fox-child was only trying to push this Kagome to be the best she could be.

"But you're not going about it the right way," he murmured to himself, before turning into the house to sniff out the girl.

She was in one of the two rooms that had become unofficially made over to the Higurashis for their use whenever some or all of the family visited for a full day, or for the weekend. One room was for Kagome and her mother, the other for Sota and Grandfather Higurashi. Both had bathrooms attached, and Kagome was always delighted with the opportunity to soak in the luxuriously large tub here. She had by now learnt what sort of scents would irritate the sensitive noses of her youkai relatives, and brought with her only organic bath products with no artificial chemicals in them.

Inuyasha chuckled to himself as he remembered the first Kagome and all her luxurious shampoos and shower gels, which she used quite liberally in the pools and hot springs during her first year in the feudal era. Only after returning to him, having grown up a lot and learnt much more, did she ruefully wonder how much damage she had done to the environment with her bubble baths and foaming shampoos.

"I hope I didn't kill too many fish back then," she had whispered to him one day when a wave of mortification overtook her for no apparent reason other than her suddenly remembering certain things she had done before.

"Well, if you did, maybe some lucky animals got a free meal out of them," he had remarked.

"Do you think so?" she had asked hopefully. "The shampoos and shower gels I used were non-toxic, so the animals that ate the fish wouldn't have been sick."

"I'm sure no one fell sick or died because of your bath products, Kagome!" he had scoffed, thinking that any creature which couldn't handle some diluted soap wasn't worth keeping alive.

He knew better now, of course. They all did. Youkai were especially respectful of the environment these days, because they had been alive long enough to have seen how much the earth had changed, and not for the better.

He caught a whiff of the olive-oil-based soap Kagome was using in the bath, and the aloe shampoo, and found the scents soothing. He waited until she was done with her bath, and could hear with his sharp ears that she had clothed herself, before knocking at her door.

"Come in!" she called. "Oh, hello, Inuyasha-sama!"

She was towelling her hair dry.

"Just Inuyasha, if you don't mind," he growled.

She laughed, sensing the affection behind his mock-growl. "All right, Inuyasha."

"I heard your exchange out in the courtyard," he went straight to the point, after they were both seated in the armchairs beside the little coffee table.

"You did?" she was a little embarrassed. She didn't always remember how sharp youkai senses were.

"I know Shippo was pushing you rather hard, but it wasn't because he was trying to make you into his late mother."

"Wasn't he? It sounded to me like he was."

"Not at all. I think it's because he is perfectly happy with the fact that you are a different person from my mate that he dares to push you to discover your full potential – even if it means possibly offending you by telling you about all that he believes is in you which might be similar to his mother's abilities and character."

"It's hard to always be compared with someone else," she said.

"I know. My Kagome hated to be compared with Kikyo, but it was inevitable, because to most people, they looked identical, and she was her reincarnation. But eventually, she realised how different they were from each other. She accepted that I had loved Kikyo in a different way from how I loved her without loving her less; and that she loved me in a different way from how Kikyo loved me."

He had to be careful when talking about such things, because they had not yet mentioned that Kikyo and the first Kagome had been alive – or somewhat alive, in Kikyo's case – at the same time when the girl from the future travelled back into the past. There would probably be no harm in telling her about the two young women inhabiting the earth at the same time. It was perfectly possible to describe Kikyo's revival by the witch fifty years after her death and her sustenance by a portion of Kagome's soul, without having to say a word about the first Kagome having come from the future. But in case something slipped out, they were still shying away from many of the details whenever they spoke to this Kagome of the past.

It would still be far too confusing an explanation about the time streams...

"In the end, she didn't mind that the woman you loved fifty years before her was just like her in many ways?" the girl towelling her hair dry now asked him.

"She even grew fond of Kikyo's memory, and spoke of her with the greatest affection and respect for the rest of her life," Inuyasha told her

"I do respect my ancestress," Kagome said firmly. "I have nothing but the deepest admiration and respect for her. But I'm not her."

"You certainly aren't," he agreed. "You are my descendant and hers, and you have your own character, which is still being formed because you are so young. Like her, you are kind and warm and intelligent. Unlike her, you have a delicate shyness that sometimes comes across as a lack of self-confidence, but which I believe will be refined in time to come into a deep and quiet strength. Also unlike her, you have a certain sorrow in you that probably stems from your sense at the age of fifteen that you were destined for something that was slipping past you. That is very much more like Kikyo than Kagome. Kikyo, you see, felt that the life of a priestess was forced on her, and despite her dedication to her duties, something inside her longed for escape. She hoped to find it through me… but we've told you about the tragedy that happened because of Naraku's deception."

"She only wanted to be an ordinary woman."

"She did. But it was never her fate to be ordinary in any way," Inuyasha sighed. "Unfortunately, in those times, a priestess could never marry. It's different in this day and age. A Shinto priestess can be anything she wants. Miko aren't like they used to be any more – it isn't a job for life. The girls come and play their ritual roles during ceremonies, then they go back to being students or office workers. And shrines now are sometimes run by what I really have to term 'female priests' rather than priestesses – and they are free to have their own families. So you can live your life to the fullest, with your priestess' powers and all, doing all the things that Kikyo never had a chance to do."

"I'll remember that," she said sincerely. "Sometimes I'm selfish, thinking only of what's good for me and not wanting to give in to others, then I feel bad about it and cave in. But I forget what a privilege it is to be able to be selfish at all, when not so very long ago, very few people could afford to be anything other than what their communities permitted them to be. I won't waste this life, or the chances I have in this world I'm living in. I can strike a blow or two for Kikyo, I think!"

"That's the spirit she would have admired," Inuyasha smiles. "So don't be afraid to be firm with Shippo – he was thoroughly trained in swordcraft and hand-to-hand battle by Sesshomaru and me, and we weren't soft on him. He doesn't know any other way to train someone else in things other than fox magic, which needs a lot more craftiness. But don't misunderstand him either. He may be trying to bring out the best of the first Kagome in you, but I'm very certain that he isn't trying to turn you into his mother. Quite the contrary, I would say."

As she got his meaning, she blushed, for things of a romantic nature were still very new between her and Shippo, and they were still stepping carefully with one another.

...

Outside the room, Shippo smiled to himself. Trust Inuyasha to want to make things right between him and Kagome. And trust him to know how both he and Kagome felt. His half-demon adoptive father had certainly changed a lot over the centuries, at least in his outward manner. Being around Sesshomaru so much had brought out all that was more sociable in Inuyasha, because he had had to make up for all that was wanting in the taiyoukai!

He had become more articulate, more organised in his thoughts and speech instead of just swinging a sword about in frustration, and much more aware of how to be gentle in his interactions with others. Having raised a daughter, Tamatsuki, and having had a share in bringing Rin up, not to mention a host of granddaughters, mostly human great-granddaughters, and some mostly human great-grandsons who were sensitive souls, Inuyasha had learnt to soften his exterior personality.

At least, that was what Shippo was saying to himself in his thoughts which had gone all soft-focused and a tad mushy in his mind, until Inuyasha opened the door, caught him eavesdropping, chased him in complete silence down the full length of one corridor, and pinned him against the wall by his ponytail.

"Oi," was the half-demon's brusque opening vowel through a fang-filled grin. "Be nice to her."

"I _am_," Shippo protested, trying not to squeak. As he had matured, he had naturally developed a kitsune-youkai instinct to behave submissively when physically confronted by a senior member of his pack, although it would be _terribly_ undignified for a mature youkai to squeak at all.

"Be _nicer_," Inuyasha hissed.

"Okay," he whispered.

Inuyasha released his grip on his hair, patted his shoulder in a way that was more like a thump, and walked off, leaving the fox with the roots of his hair smarting.

So much for a gentler outward manner. Some things didn't change much.


	15. Making Contact

**Making Contact**

"I'm sorry if I went about the archery lesson in the wrong way," Shippo said after dinner, as he walked in the garden with Kagome. He had given her his arm, old-fashioned Western-style, and she had slipped her hand through.

"I'm sorry if I got snappish and misread your intentions," she smiled, now tucking her arm more snugly around his.

He loved this feeling – her head against his upper arm, her body pressed close, the pleasing scent of her abundant hair. He stopped by a willow near the koi pond, and kissed her ever so gently. Everything was so chaste between them still, that he fleetingly wondered if there was something wrong with the way they were interacting with each other. He was _interested_, but there wasn't a lot of driving _passion_ at the moment. Not from himself, and not from her, as far as he could tell. He might not be mixing her up with his mother any more, but maybe he was viewing her too much as a member of the family… a relative…? But no, youkai were perfectly open to matings between close relations – even full siblings were still considered fair game in many demon circles. Besides, he and Kagome weren't related by blood.

He drew back and wondered for a second if he might be making a mistake here. But then he looked into her face, with its warmth and innocence and gentleness, and found himself smiling helplessly like a fool, knowing at once that this was where he wanted to be.

"What?" she asked, smiling helplessly herself as she gazed into his brilliant green eyes. His pale flesh almost seemed to glow in the evening light.

"You can snap at me all you like, especially when I deserve it," he said. "When you're exceptionally furious with me, you can even shoot me with an arrow – as long as you haven't imbued it with your priestess' powers. It won't kill me, you know."

"But if I channel my priestess' powers into it?"

"Then I might be in some trouble."

"Ooh. I'm going to have to learn how to control those powers soon."

"Hmm. Maybe there are some things I shouldn't let you learn yet," he remarked, slipping his arms round the back of her waist.

"Are you afraid of all that I could become?" she asked, teasingly, lifting her arms to circle his neck.

"Maybe I am."

"Scaredy-cat."

"Scaredy-fox, you mean."

She laughed, and kissed him.

…

Byakuya of the Dreams watched and followed as the fox demon drove the priestess home to the shrine after dinner. He remembered how he had been tasked by Naraku five hundred years ago to condemn the girl to the meidou, how he had "slashed" her from behind with the powers stolen from the Tetsusaiga, and how he himself had then been lost in the meidou opened up by Inuyasha's retaliatory strike.

He had died.

He knew he must have died. There was blankness and nothingness. He had no recollection of that time in the meidou, of his entering a state of death. Yet, one day, he was spat out into the world again in the middle of a forest, and his last memory was that of how he had been sucked into the vastness of the nothing-world of the meidou after slashing at the priestess. By asking a few questions of people and doing some detailed calculations of his own, he determined that he had been in the meidou for a period of three years. Discreet disguises and careful investigation had also brought him the answer that Naraku was truly gone forever, and the inutachi had triumphed.

Detailed examination of his own powers, scent and physique helped him determine that apart from his physical appearance, everything else had altered. His scent was no longer that of Naraku's; his powers did not reek of Naraku's; with some strategic adoption of various physical disguises, he could be _any_ anonymous youkai under the moon.

Having no further loyalty to the memory of his spider half-demon creator, and with no personal quarrel against the inuyoukai, Byakuya of the Dreams had hot-footed it all the way to the other end of Japan, to get as far away from the enemies of Naraku as he could. He was going to live a perfectly quiet life, with no trouble at all.

Indeed, he had. He had truly repented of his past association with Naraku (not that he had had any choice in the matter, having been _created_ by the bastard), and genuinely wanted no trouble with any other demons. He had banished all thoughts of the past from his mind and focused on surviving without drawing attention to himself. He had adapted swiftly to human ways as the mortal species began to dominate the earth, and he had thrived in modern times.

Only recently had he dared to physically move to Tokyo, the former Edo where Naraku had perished, to manage his luxury-paper business better. It was also recently, with the greater success of his career, that he had begun to indulge in thoughts about the past. He had begun to wonder why he had been spared when Naraku had not, and all his siblings – from Kagura to Hakudoshi and the infant – remained dead. That was when he had made contact with other youkai who had known, or known of, the inutachi from five hundred years ago. He had employed them, and sent them forth to find out if they could determine what had happened to the Shikon jewel, the Tetsusaiga, the dog demons, and their human companions.

He did not tell them that his ultimate aim was not to get his hands on these objects of power, but rather to discover if any of those things, or any of the demons and humans who had had anything to do with them, could reveal why he was alive, why he had been freed of Naraku's curse, and what it all meant, if anything. But the idiots had misunderstood him and decided to kidnap the priestess and attempt to hack into the inu demons' computer systems. Tanuki fools.

Now that he was reasonably sure that the Shikon jewel was no more, and the Tetsusaiga remained in Inuyasha's hands, the primary mystery was the survival of the human priestess when her fellow-humans – the monk and the demon slayer – were long-dead. The priestess was the key to everything. All he needed was to ask her a few questions. It wouldn't be easy to get close to her with all those youkai bodyguards around, but his letter posted through the mail should have reached the house by now.

Also, there was that interesting affinity he had only just learnt that he had with the Bone Eater's Well. Perhaps because Naraku had apparently sunk into the well's multi-dimensioned depths along with the Shikon Jewel five hundred years ago, after being pierced by the priestess' arrow, he, Byakuya, appeared to have formed a sort of _link_ with it.

…

Shippo sat with the Higurashis for a little while in the shrine after seeing Kagome home, then he took his leave. He thought he sensed someone watching them, but someone was always watching these days, it seemed. Besides, Koga's people were on guard, making very sure that no one with ill intentions entered the shrine compound.

What no one knew was that as he left, Kagome was picking up from the side table a letter addressed to her, which had arrived in the mail that day.

_How __quaint,_ she thought, as she observed from the cream envelope and handwriting that it was probably not junk mail, or an advertising brochure, or a communication from the university. It looked like a proper letter. Was it from one of her friends? _Who __writes __proper __letters __these __days?_

As she climbed the stairs to her room, she opened the envelope and started to read.

_To the priestess Kagome:_

_Pardon me for writing to you like this, but there are many mysteries I do not understand which I hope you can help me clear up. Can I ask you to meet me by the Bone Eater's Well at any time that is convenient for you? Please bring this letter with you._

There was no name at the bottom of the letter, which was written on paper of excellent quality.

Who had sent it? How was she to reply what time would be convenient for her to see this person by the Bone Eater's Well? Was it a dangerous person, like the tanuki youkai who had abducted her?

She knew that Shippo had had demons guarding the shrine ever since her kidnapping. She couldn't see these demons – wolf youkai, it seemed – but she could sense them nearby, and she felt safe with them around. Lulled by the security provided by their proximity, she turned around on the stairs and went back down and out into the courtyard out of sheer curiosity, heading for the Bone Eater's Well, carrying the letter.

Of course no one would be there. What a silly idea. But the way the letter was phrased – "at any time that is convenient for you" – sounded so odd, so presumptuous, as if the person could be there whenever she was.

…

Byakuya's newly realised connection with the Bone Eater's Well triggered an alert in his senses as he felt the approach of his own spelled letter to that very well. He had already parked his car by the road not very far from the shrine. At once, he whipped out one of his origami spells, activated it, and vanished in a puff of cloud only to appear a second later before an astonished Kagome in the well house, which was illuminated only by the small electric lamp installed near the door.

"Miko," he greeted her with a bow. "Thank you for coming to see me. Please don't be afraid that I am anything like what I was before – those days are over. All I want from you is some answers that I hope will help me clear up the mystery of what happened to me."

"Who – who are you?" Kagome asked warily, backing away, towards the door of the well house.

"Don't you remember me? I am Byakuya of the Dreams."

"_Who?_"

That was when all hell broke loose, as the wolf demons watching the shrine raised the alarm that an intruder had entered the grounds somehow and was now no more than two feet away from Kagome beside the well.

A phone call was made to Shippo, who immediately spun his car around on the street and raced back towards the shrine.

Ginta and Hakkaku sprang out of the trees near the shrine, yelling: "Get away from Kagome!"

"Oh, damn," Byakuya muttered as he cut off Kagome's exit route and shut the well house door. It looked as if he was going to have to end up doing exactly what he had scolded his tanuki employees for doing.

"Hey!" she protested as he blocked the doorway. "What do you think you're doing?"

As the wolves broke down the well house, and the Higurashis ran out of the house upon hearing shouts from the courtyard, Shippo flew up to the shrine from the street and saw with his own eyes a person who could not possibly still be alive.

Byakuya of the Dreams, Naraku's final incarnation, standing a foot away from Kagome by the Bone Eater's Well, surrounded by wolf demons.

"Kagome!" Shippo roared, flying towards them, only to see Byakuya wrap an arm around Kagome, ignoring the flares of terrible pain that were surely assailing him as she instinctively hit him with her priestess' powers of purification. The demon that surely could not be alive dragged the girl towards the well, then tumbled in with her.

The wolves and Shippo charged at the well, but stopped dead as they looked in and saw no one inside.

Shippo felt as if he had been punched in the gut by twenty Sesshomarus. The well, which to the best of everyone's knowledge had not functioned as a portal for half a century, was empty, and the girl had been snatched by Byakuya from right under their noses.

He had felt unspeakable rage upon seeing that creature so close to Kagome. Then he had felt a jolt of pure terror when he saw the frightened look on Kagome's face as she was dragged backwards into the well. Now, he experienced a sense of utter helplessness to realise that they had vanished without even a sign or scent of a portal having been used, unlike the obvious portal used by the tanuki in the empty shophouse.

Suddenly, he realised how wrong he had been to think that there was no driving passion between him and the reincarnated priestess.

Because he was growling like a feral animal this very moment to think that someone – some other male – possibly a very dangerous male – had seized his female and taken her away from him by force. Byakuya of the Dreams was going to pay for this.

And once he got Kagome back, he was going to make sure that everyone knew she was his woman.


	16. A Little Knowledge

**A Little Knowledge**

Shippo was almost incandescent with rage. Inuyasha had never seen his kitsune son like this before. The computer room at their company headquarters was fairly alight with the threat of fox fire.

"That _monster_ is alive!" Shippo snarled, fangs bared, hardly aware of what he was doing. He would ordinarily never bare his teeth like this in the presence of Sesshomaru and Inuyasha.

"Are you certain it was Byakuya of the Dreams?" Sesshomaru asked evenly, with deliberate calmness, exerting the force of his quiet authority to dampen Shippo's fury and distress without having to tell him off verbally.

"I'm certain!" Shippo snapped. "His scent was concealed, but that face – those eyes – I know it was him!"

"We've tested the well," Inuyasha muttered. "There's no reason it would function as a portal for him but not for me."

They had spent a good couple of hours examining the Bone Eater's Well, with Inuyasha jumping in and out of it several times, before determining that it held no portal. Leaving Koga and his people to watch the well, the dog demons had returned to their business headquarters to see if their computer systems could track down Byakuya where their youkai senses could not because of all the sophisticated concealment spells used in this day and age.

"He's _Naraku's_ incarnation," Shippo growled. "Naraku, who did all the evil he did purely to possess Kikyo – what will that bastard do now that he has Kagome's reincarnation – Kikyo's second reincarnation?"

"We are not going to get answers by losing control of ourselves," Sesshomaru stated firmly, his first use of a stern tone that night to rebuke Shippo for getting upset enough to snap at his elders.

It instantly forced Shippo into some degree of calm, but his agitation was still too great for him to be of help to Kuromatsu and the other badger demons, who were scouring the youkai database on their system now for a hint of Byakuya's presence.

"The letter Kagome was holding disappeared along with her, but the envelope it came in gives us a lead," Inuyasha reminded Shippo.

"Yes, the quality of the paper is excellent," Kuromatsu agreed. "Not that many firms make such fine _kozo washi_ these days. Our examination of the material suggests that smooth animal hairs are woven into the fibre too, and that should narrow the field a little further."

"What kind of animal hairs?" Sesshomaru asked. "Horsehair is fairly common."

"We have not determined the exact type of animal, but I suspect that we won't need to, Sesshomaru-sama," Kuromatsu replied. "That is because they seem, thus far, to be youkai animal hairs. No human-owned firms we know of would have access to such materials."

The analysis of a small piece of the envelope by the laboratory equipment connected to the computer system soon produced the information that the hairs were from tanuki youkai.

"Tanuki?" Inuyasha's ears pricked up. "Those bloody raccoon dogs who kidnapped Kagome that time… could they be working with the bastard?"

"If we can find them, perhaps they will lead us to him," Sesshomaru decided. "And Kagome."

…

"Damn it!" Byakuya of the Dreams gasped reflexively, losing his calm despite himself, as Kagome's powers of purification assailed him.

He had come prepared for an attack by her in case she turned hostile; the shield of his spell was giving him some measure of protection. But her powers were great – despite being oddly raw and unrefined for such an ancient and experienced priestess – and they were piercing him through the protective magical coating.

As soon as they reached the intermediate space that he was able to access through the well, he dropped her and sprang away to the other end of the chamber, where he nursed his wounds while eyeing her to make sure she wouldn't fire any arrows (or bullets) at him.

But the girl looked terrified rather than angry. She was trembling as she looked blindly around the empty space they were in, with no features and no visible surfaces of solid flooring or walls that would be familiar to her eyes. Byakuya realised that she could not see very well in this darkness of the semi-portal, and he lit a flame with his magic, holding it in the palm of his hand.

"Miko," he spoke. "Please don't be afraid. I mean you no harm."

She stared at this demon of perfectly human appearance, crossed her arms over her body, and whispered: "Who are you, and what do you want from me? Where am I?"

"Has living for five hundred years destroyed your human memory?" Byakuya asked. "Have you truly forgotten who I am?"

At his words, Kagome realised that once again, she had been mistaken for her ancestress.

"I'm not who you think I am," she said warily, although her fear was quickly ebbing as she saw that Byakuya was in pain from the effects of her powers, and was not making any move towards her.

"Eh? You are the priestess Kagome, are you not?" he asked.

"The first priestess Kagome was my ancestor. I am told that I am her reincarnation."

"Oh." Byakuya looked clearly taken aback. Then he added: "Oh, dear."

"So I'm afraid you've got the wrong girl," Kagome said firmly.

"I'm a little confused," Byakuya murmured, looking at her out of puzzled eyes. "The first Kagome came from the future – well, the future as it related to the past I was created in – and now we are in the future again, but she's not here, and you are…?"

"I beg your pardon?" Kagome asked, startled. "What do you mean the first Kagome came from the future?"

"Well, at the point where Naraku had her trapped in the meidou, and I was slowly fading into death, I saw what he and the Shikon jewel were showing her of her life – and it was an alien world to me then, but after I died and came back, and as time passed, I realised it was merely a future world – the world we live in now."

Every word he spoke was twisting Kagome's mind into a pretzel, and she could scarcely find her tongue to query in a daze: "She was trapped in the _what?_ What's the 'meidou'? Her home – her life – was _this_ world? And did just say that you _died_ and came back? I – I don't understand any of that…" She was starting to shiver again, from bewilderment and disorientation.

"I apologise," Byakuya replied. "I have been assuming that you would know all this and more – in fact, I wanted to see you because I thought _you_ would be able to tell _me_ what happened to me. But it becomes clear now that I am the one who needs to explain things to you."

"Yes. Please."

"First, allow me to establish how much you do know. Please tell me what you know so that I know where my starting point should be."

"I only know that recently, youkai to whom I was related made contact with me, and told me that was the descendant and reincarnation of the first Kagome. I came from a branch of their family which had married only humans, turned their backs on their demon relatives, and lost contact with them. They tell me that I look exactly like the first Kagome. That's the sum of it."

"Did they say where the first Kagome had come from?" Byakuya asked.

"No. I assumed she came from another part of feudal Japan… another village or something… whenever they mentioned that she had left her home and her family to be with Inuyasha. Perhaps I shouldn't have assumed…"

"Let me tell you what little _I_ know," he said, when her words trailed off into nothing. "It is not much, but it is perhaps a little more than you do now."

"Please."

"I'd like to transport us back to my house first, if you don't mind. I can use this intermediate space permitted me by the well only for limited periods of time. We'll be back in the physical world again. You'll be more comfortable there."

"Is this a portal?" she asked, remembering what she had been borne through by the tanuki youkai, and then by Shippo.

"Yes and no. I have a connection with the Bone Eater's well that I don't know how to explain, and it lets me use an intermediate space within its dimensions to move from place to place. In that sense, I suppose it is a kind of room within a kind of portal, but it's not a regular magical portal of the kind magically skilled demons normally know how to use."

"I don't think I understood much of that either, but I get the picture."

"Good. Do I have permission to approach you?"

"Yes."

"I will have to be in physical contact with you to take you through with me to my home."

"Fine."

"You're not going to hit me with your purification powers again, are you?" he asked cautiously, as he stepped close to her.

"I won't do that, as long as you don't try anything funny."

He hesitated before reaching out to take her arm, and they travelled through the link he had to his home.

Kagome found herself in a tastefully decorated living room in a house that looked like a regular enough human home. She breathed a little more easily as she looked out of the window and saw a garden, and beyond the garden walls, street lights and the occasional flash of light from the headlamps of passing vehicles.

"Please sit down. I'll get you something to drink. Water? Tea? Coffee?"

"Just plain water, please."

He disappeared into the kitchen and returned shortly with a glass of water at room temperature. She sipped it before it occurred to her that it might be drugged. But he was a demon – if he'd wanted to incapacitate her, he would have done it by now. She took another sip, deciding that she would choose to trust him.

"So, what is the little that you know that is more than I know, and which you can tell me?" she asked, wanting to get back to the explanation of the mystery behind the first Kagome.

Byakuya seated himself in an armchair opposite hers, gathered his memories and his thoughts, and began his account:

"I was the last incarnation of Naraku. I had no personal quarrel with your dog-demon relatives, but my maker did, and I was created to obey him. I was with Naraku almost until the end, as he took his last stand against Sesshomaru, Inuyasha, Kagome, the monk Miroku, the slayer Sango, her brother Kohaku, and the fox-kit, Shippo. My final duty to Naraku was to send the priestess Kagome into the meidou – an empty universe mysteriously linked to the netherworld and to the powers of the Shikon jewel, in which the opposing forces of destructive youkai and the defences of an ancient priestess, Midoriko, warred continuously. I did as ordered, only for Inuyasha to retaliate with his Tetsusaiga and send me into the meidou myself. I must have died or sunk into a state of suspended animation not long afterward, because I have no memory of what happened to me in there beyond a certain point.

"But before I sank into oblivion, I saw what Naraku and the Shikon jewel were doing to Kagome: they were tempting her with hallucinatory visions of her life – the life she could be leading with her family, her friends, in her world. What a strange world it looked to me at the time. A world of artificial lights, monstrously tall buildings, amazing devices. I thought she must be not only a priestess but a goddess, to have come from such a universe. I saw that she had a connection to the Bone Eater's well, and that she and Naraku had sunk into the combined dimensions of the well, the meidou and the Shikon jewel. I somehow understood through that magical link with Naraku and the visions that the Bone Eater's well was the magical portal that had carried her from her remarkable world to my world of the past. Then I knew no more.

"Some years after that, I was returned to consciousness, to life, and to the physical world. I simply found myself back out in the world one day, free of Naraku, who was dead. Free of his scent, his control, his poison. I didn't know why I was alive. I asked some careful questions of people I encountered, and calculated from what they said that three years had passed since the time of my death. I didn't hang around Edo, I can tell you that. As I said, I had and have nothing against your inuyoukai relations. I had no intention of tangling with them again, so I fled to the other end of Japan, and steered well clear of them. I knew nothing of their lives, or what might have become of them. But after a few hundred years of living quietly, and adapting to the changes of the human world, I began to wonder why I was alive. I began to wonder exactly what had returned me to the world of the living, and if it had anything to do with the great Tetsusaiga sword, the Shikon jewel, the well and the priestess, all linked with my demise. I began to try and find out what had happened to those things, and the dog demons, and the humans associated with them. I discovered that the Bone Eater's well remained in existence, but that it had not worked as a portal for five hundred years. I then asked my tanuki youkai subordinates to investigate further – but the bungling idiots misunderstood me, and ended up kidnapping you instead."

"_Those_ creatures were your subordinates?" Kagome's eyes narrowed as her voice sharpened just a tad.

"I am truly sorry," Byakuya apologised quickly. "I did _not_ tell them to abduct you!"

"But now you've done just that yourself."

"Ah, yes," he admitted sheepishly. "Again, I give you my sincerest apologies."

"Anyway, you were saying…"

"Yes, I wanted to know why I was here, and if the sword and the jewel could give me any answers. I thought that if the inuyoukai had passed on, I could get hold of the sword and jewel and uncover the mysteries through them. But from what I gathered, the jewel had ceased to exist. And the sword remained with its rightful wielder, Inuyasha – whom I had _no_ intention of approaching, not if I wanted to _remain_ alive. So when I found out through my bungling subordinates that you were still around, and somehow not living with Inuyasha any more, I thought I would look for you and ask you."

"Wait a minute – didn't your subordinates tell you that they knew I wasn't the first Kagome?"

Byakuya looked baffled. "They knew you were not the first Kagome?" he asked in return.

"They didn't know at first, but they found out pretty soon!" she revealed. "Within a half-hour of abducting me, I would guess!"

The demon stared at her. "They _found out_ that you were her reincarnation and not her?"

"Yes. They said so to each other. They said to each other after questioning me for a while that they had the wrong girl."

"They didn't tell me," Byakuya murmured thoughtfully. "I wonder why that is."

"Are they turning against you for some reason?" she asked worriedly.

"I was rather snappish with them that day. Perhaps I simply did not give them the chance to tell me. But I don't know. I'll find out the details. In any case, I will deal with them myself. You needn't worry about that."

"Okay… but what I'd really like to know now is, if the first Kagome really came from this time and this world, why haven't we met her again in this time, if she's not _me_? You know, all those Back To The Future movies I've watched say you will meet yourself if you go back to the right time… or the wrong time… or whatever. Or have I somehow come to occupy the place in this time and age that ought to have been hers? I'm confused."

"So am I," the demon sighed, leaning back in his armchair and putting his fingertips together.

"If this is her world and her time, then even if she died of old age more than four hundred years ago, Inuyasha could wait for her to be born again here to meet her once more, right? They're very clear on the fact that I'm not her and she's not me, so where is she?"

The demon was quiet, and Kagome herself fell silent for several long minutes. Until the silence was broken by the male, who sat forward in his chair quite suddenly and said: "Something's coming to me."

"What is it?"

"Bear with me, please…" Byakuya murmured as he thought hard. "I might have an idea, but bear with me as I work through it, because it's not a very clear picture yet…"

He walked over to the desk across the room and took out a sheet of blank paper, then picked up a pen. He drew a straight line from the top to the bottom of the sheet, and marked a dot high up along the line. He then marked another dot in the middle of the line.

"Miko," he said. "I don't know if this theory forming in my head is correct, but let's see if it works as we go along."

Kagome leaned forward and looked curiously at the line and the dot. "What is your theory?" she asked.

"This line represents the passage of time, from the past at the top, to the present – or even the future – at the bottom. Time normally should move in a single straight line, am I right?"

"I believe so," she replied.

"This dot in the middle of the line represents where the first Kagome was at the time when she first travelled back into the past through the Bone Eater's well, to this dot at the top of the line. That was where she would have first met Inuyasha, and Naraku, and Kikyo."

"And Shippo."

"Yes. Now, at some point after Naraku's death, she must have chosen to leave her modern world and stay in the past with Inuyasha, correct?"

"She must have, otherwise she wouldn't have become my ancestor," Kagome agreed.

"So all was well for her – she chose a time to remain in, and she lived out her life in that time, then died as mortals do. But time would also have continued moving forward for the family she left behind in her modern world, wouldn't it? Her mother, grandfather, brother and friends would not simply have disappeared into thin air, reabsorbed by the universe, would they? They would have carried on living their lives without her – which means that the timeline would have split. Back To The Future time-travel theories don't apply here."

Byakuya drew another line parallel to the first, its beginning starting at the same level as the dot near the top of the line. He drew a short line to connect the dot of the first line to the top of the second line.

"I believe that when the first Kagome chose to remain with Inuyasha in the past – or perhaps even from the very first moment when she bridged two eras by travelling into the past – she created a new timeline for everything that would come after her. In other words, that is the timeline that you belong to, because you are her descendant, and her reincarnation, and you are among the things that came from her new life in the past."

"And her old life in her modern world…?" Kagome began uncertainly.

"It went on without her, along this first timeline. Her family would have missed her for the rest of their lives. They would never have seen her again, unless she was able to travel through time to see them once in a while."

"But you said earlier that the well showed no signs of having been used as a portal through time since its last use more than five hundred years ago," Kagome said.

"That's right. Which means she never used it again after choosing to live with Inuyasha. Which is why her family never saw her again."

"Was her family… just like my family?" Kagome asked, suddenly feeling a strange ache in her heart.

"I only saw them through the visions granted me by Naraku's magical use of the Shikon jewel in the meidou and the mysterious dimensions of the well, when he was showing her the illusions of the life she could lead without Inuyasha. I saw her family and her friends. Based on what I saw of your relatives when we were by the well, her family seemed very much like the one you have now. No – not just very much like, but _identical_."

"But if the timelines were different…"

"Miko, that original timeline had a past adding up to everything that the first Kagome knew in her modern world. Why shouldn't the second timeline, which originated from a near-identical past, not produce another modern world and people very, very similar to what had been produced by the first?"

"So when Shippo and Inuyasha told me that I was very like their Kagome, it wasn't only because I was her reincarnation. It was also because I was another version of her in the modern world," Kagome murmured thoughtfully. "I am her equivalent in this timeline, while she has vanished forever in the other timeline."

"Something like that – at least I think so," Byakuya agreed.

"Why didn't they tell me that their Kagome came from a world and a time just like mine?" she wondered aloud.

"I don't know," Byakuya admitted. "Maybe they were afraid that it would be too confusing for you. Or even for themselves to have to try and explain it. It was probably hard enough for you to digest that there are youkai in this day and age, without having to be further bewildered by talk of time-travelling schoolgirls and parallel timelines."

"I can understand that. But still, they could have _tried_ to tell me…?"

"Well, you can take your time asking them that when I get you back to them. I now have to work out how I can do that without them killing me on sight," Byakuya sighed.

"I'll shield you," Kagome offered.

"No, that will only make them think I'm _using_ you as a shield. I won't use the well again. That would be walking into my grave, because I'm sure their people are camped out around it. We're already in the physical plane, in my house, so I'll just have to trust you to make your way home by yourself, and not tell them where they can come to kill me. I'll pay for your cab fare, of course."

"Thank you," Kagome said, standing up. "Oh, and I'm sorry I hurt you so badly earlier. I really thought you were going to hurt me."

"I understand. Anyway, it's healing. I'll be fine."

He reached for his mobile phone lying on the desk and began to ring a cab company, but suddenly looked distracted. Kagome knew he must have heard something outside the house with his demon ears, because she had often seen Shippo cock his head in exactly the same way whenever he detected movements or scents beyond her range of sensing.

"What is it?" she whispered.

"I think my tanuki subordinates _are_ turning against me."

He took her arm and attempted to transport them back into the intermediate space of the well, but failed.

"What happened?"

"Those overweight bastards have put up a one-way barrier around my house," he hissed. "It let me in, but it's not letting me out."

Two puffs of smoke materialised on the other side of the living room, clearing to reveal the tanuki demons who had kidnapped Kagome before. She shrank back instinctively, drawing closer to Byakuya.

"Hey, boss," rumbled the larger of the youkai, the one Kagome remembered was called Hiro.

"Hiya," added the other, Mujina, in a hoarse voice.

Byakuya moved between Kagome and the raccoon youkai, and demanded: "What do the two of you think you're doing?"

"We're doing what you ought to have had the ambition to do all along, boss," said Hiro.

"Which would be…?" Byakuya asked calmly.

"Hold the priestess hostage, get the powerful swords, get the secrets of the inuyoukai's powerful computer systems, suppress your enemies, and command the world," Hiro growled.

"And if I do not want to do any of that?"

"Then, boss, we'll put you away and do it in your place."

"That does not sound good," Kagome hissed. "Can you take them on?"

"Ordinarily, yes, without any trouble whatsoever," Byakuya replied. "But they seem to have worked out all my ways and systems, because this damned barrier is rather cleverly suppressing my specific powers – as well as dampening yours."

"That is _not_ good!" she snapped.

"No shit," Byakuya muttered gloomily.

The tanuki youkai began to move towards them, and there was nowhere to run to.


	17. Back And Forth

**Back And Forth**

"This is not a good time to resign yourself to fate!" Kagome said urgently to Byakuya, who looked to be at a loss as he could not exercise his usual powers against the two tanuki youkai who were closing in on them.

"I'm not resigning myself to fate," he replied lightly. "I'm just thinking."

"Well, think faster!" she yelped.

"Right."

Just when the larger of the tanuki, Hiro, was within touching distance of them, and Kagome desperately struggled to force out her sealed powers to repel them, Byakuya finished thinking. He threw up a small but very dense barrier within the larger barrier they were trapped inside, with what little of his power he could access. Hiro walked right into it and bounced back as if he had smacked face-first into a wall.

Mujina had the sense to stop moving forward once he saw what had happened to his comrade. Rumbling and grumbling so that his large round belly quivered, he growled: "Now what's _this_?"

"It's just a paltry barrier from what little power he can make use of right now," Hiro snarled, rubbing his nose. "It won't hold for long."

"See? I can't get us out of here, and I can't use my offensive arsenal, but I _can_ keep them out for a bit!" Byakuya told Kagome a little too cheerfully, considering the situation. "Naraku was the absolute _king_ of barriers, and I learnt a hell of a lot from him – he could use all kinds of shields, anywhere, any time... but I guess you don't want to hear about Naraku right now...?"

"You say their barrier is dampening my priestess' powers too?" she asked Byakuya quickly, trying not to be distracted by the imposing sight of the enormous youkai just two feet away from them, pressing their massive paws to the inner barrier and working on bringing it down. "How do I _un_dampen them?"

"My dear, _you_ are the miko, not me," Byakuya sighed. "Demons may know how to counter holy powers in order to defend themselves, but they don't have a clue how to _use_ them!"

"Well, it hasn't been long since I found out I was a priestess!" she snapped. "I don't know any better than you do how to control these abilities!"

"Then we're stuck. I have, however, designed this barrier we're behind now to be one we can step out of if we want to, so it won't stop your powers from passing through it. If you can try freeing some of your powers, and concentrate on poking a hole in the floor of their barrier, we might be able to slip away."

Byakuya said all that perfectly clearly, out loud, meaning that Hiro and Mujina could hear every word too.

"Don't you even think about escaping!" Hiro growled, after which he and Mujina worked even harder on bringing down Byakuya's shield, which began to tremble.

"Hurry, miko. From the feel of their barrier, _your_ powers are likely to be more toxic to its integrity than mine would be at present."

Kagome closed her eyes so she wouldn't see the tanuki an arm's length from her, or Byakuya's smiling face paired with his dark, worried eyes. She stilled herself and explored what she was sensing within her, calling on bits of information she had picked up here and there from her grandfather about utilising sacred sources of strength. She sensed a bright, glowing body of power pulsing silently throughout her body, but something outside of her was all around it like shrink-wrap, suppressing it, constricting it. She probed the shrink wrap-like envelope with her spiritual senses, feeling its texture – something smooth and without holes or nicks, flexible and yet unyielding. This must be the expression of the spell the tanuki had employed in their larger barrier, like a sheet soaked with drugs that would seep through to sedate the powers of the persons wrapped in it. She sharpened her senses, visualising her strength as being concentrated at one point where her feet were, and further visualising them as tapering to a stiletto-like end right between her toes. And then she _pushed _downward.

"Good girl," Byakuya murmured. "You've made a small hole in it. Hold it open. Don't let it close up. I don't think I have the power to get us both out of here, but I can probably get you out, at least."

"No, you can't just send me out of here. What about you?" she asked.

"I'll think of something once I no longer have you here to worry about. I think I'd rather die at the hands of these two clowns than be skinned alive by your canine friends if you get hurt here because of my mistake."

"Hey!" Mujina pounded on the barrier. "Don't either of you move!"

"Quickly, take this," Byakuya told her, materialising a lotus flower out of nowhere, and handing it to her.

"What's this?"

"It's the last ounce of transport power I can summon as long as these two are keeping their barrier up. It's good for one person. It will take you back to the holding area of the well once I activate it. Don't be afraid even if I should die here and never come for you. It's a dimension that won't allow you to remain in it above an hour or so. If you just stay there quietly, it will eventually spit you back out into the world you belong to – you should end up right at home. Now go!"

He waved his hand over the lotus to unlock its powers, and Kagome vanished before the eyes of the furious tanuki.

An exhausted Byakuya dropped his shield and readied himself for hand-to-hand combat with his former allies. But just as Hiro swung an enormous paw full of long, black claws at him, the tanuki barrier burst open along with the front door of the house, and another great, fat, furry shape tumbled onto the scene to barrel into Mujina and Hiro.

Byakuya stared in disbelief as he steadied himself and worked frantically to shake his sleepy and near-depleted powers back into working order. For it was a _third_ tanuki youkai, even fatter and larger than Hiro, but one he did not know and had never, to the best of his knowledge, seen before.

The three tubby, black-and-white bodies rolled in a cloud of flying fur all over the floor, scuffling, spitting, swatting, biting and clawing almost indiscriminately at one another.

Then the newcomer roared out loud and low, and banged the heads of the other two hard together, stunning them both. While they reeled, he cast a swift spell at them, rendering them momentarily immobile before he sealed them behind his own magic barrier. It really took a wily racoon demon to know how to counter the powers of other equally crafty racoon demons.

"Hahh... hffff..." the third racoon demon panted and puffed, as he staggered to his large, fat feet. He was _extremely_ overweight. "Hhhh... hi there."

"Who _are_ you?" Byakuya asked warily.

"Oh, you don't know me – I'm Hachi. I think you were 'made' by Naraku during a time when I didn't meet my inu friends much. But I know who you are – I've been watching you ever since I realised I needed to keep a very sharp eye on my fellow racoons while staying out of _their_ sight."

"Hachi. So the inuyoukai are your friends?"

"Yup," he chuckled wispily, still getting his breath back. "I was like a brother to the monk, Miroku. He's long-deceased, of course, being human and all. But I kept in touch with his demon pack on and off. Until those two jokers over there decided they wanted to take over the world or some such shit, and tried to muscle me into betraying the canine demons. What a pain they were. I disappeared so they couldn't find me, but I kept watching them very closely, in secret."

"Ah."

"You'd better go get the girl, before her friends think you've done away with her."

"Yes. Give me a moment, please."

But before he could summon enough of his reawakening power to head for the temporary dimension of the well to which he had sent Kagome, the house rumbled, windows were smashed, and the roof broken right through as all the leaders of the canine demon pack burst onto the scene.

Inuyasha and Koga pointed blades at Hachi from behind, while Ginta and Hakkaku prodded the two spell-shackled tanuki. Sesshomaru calmly watched from a vantage point in the living room to ensure that no other danger lurked nearby. But Shippo landed on Byakuya like a streak of reddish-brown rage, wrapped his hands and claws around the demon's neck, and snarled into his face: "What the hell have you done to Kagome? Where is she?"

"Uh... runt... he's not your enemy," Hachi rumbled.

"_Hachi?_" Inuyasha asked, amazed, scuttling round to the front of the large, furry demon and recognising their old friend.

"In the flesh."

"Hachi!" Shippo exclaimed, though he still kept his hands round Byakuya's throat.

"Yup. It's me. Your enemies are those two idiots I've put out of action over there. The Naraku-made fellow you're throttling was actually defending the girl against them. I've been keeping an eye on them since they tried to get me to join their moronic take-over-the-world scheme some years back, and I couldn't keep in touch with you because they were trying to use me to get to you. But I had to show myself this time, once I realised you guys weren't around, and that Byakuya chap was running out of steam."

Inuyasha and Koga lowered their blades. Shippo, however, did not release Byakuya.

"What happened _here_, I do not know," the fox demon growled at the one he continued to grip firmly, his kitsune powers making certain that Byakuya would not be able to use any of his one-time lotus spells to vanish into any getaway makeshift portals. "I only know that you dragged Kagome into the well and disappeared with her, and those two bastards we finally sniffed out at your house were working for you!"

"They were indeed working for me," Byakuya admitted. "But I did not ask them to abduct your priestess, neither did I tell them to do any of the stupid things they did. I dragged the miko into the well only because I needed her help to answer some questions about myself, and I didn't see another chance to do it with you lot charging murderously at me. I've only just sent her to safety with the last of my active power, back to the holding dimension of the well. It will send her back out to her own home after an hour or so, even without intervention. But if you would just give me a few minutes to build my powers back up to their normal level, I can take one or all of you with me to where she is."

"The tanuki spell they used on him was designed expressly to counter his specific powers," Hachi explained. "They knew him pretty well, so their spell was custom-made to work a bit like a narcotic drug on him. He'll need a few minutes to get back into gear."

"Why should we trust him at all?" Inuyasha asked grimly. "He's Naraku's incarnation. He was the one whose actions trapped my Kagome in the meidou. He's the one who abducted the second Kagome. He works with that Mujina idiot. And if he's alive, I have to wonder if Naraku's come back as well. I don't see _anything_ here that's in his favour as far as we're concerned."

"Exactly," Shippo agreed.

"I obeyed Naraku in those days because I was created to obey him" Byakuya sighed. "Forgive me for my actions of five centuries ago. I personally have nothing against any of you. To the best of my knowledge, Naraku is not in existence. To the best of my knowledge, none of his other creations are in existence. I do not know why, but the meidou released me back into life and into this world some three years after I first died in it. I wanted nothing to do with any of you. I've stayed as far away from all of you as possible for more than four hundred and ninety years. I had hoped never to see any of you again for as long as I lived. But I got curious about why I had been returned to life, and I just wanted some answers. I hoped the miko – who was so closely associated with the Bone Eater's Well – would have some of those answers. I myself have had a mysterious connection with the well ever since I was returned to life, perhaps because Naraku died within the merger of dimensions that linked the well, the meidou and the Shikon jewel. I also hoped to have that connection explained by the miko who was given passage by the well, who survived the meidou, and who was intimately associated with the Shikon jewel. It was only after I spoke with her that I realised she was not the same miko as the one from before, but her reincarnation."

"He means it, folks," Hachi said. "Since I've been watching those tanuki embarrassments, I've been watching him too. He's not a bad guy. He just minds his own paper business, and only when he got curious about his own existence did he start trying to get answers – and that was when he had to get closer to your pack again."

"Sorry," Byakuya said, inclining his head as best he could, with Shippo's hand on his throat.

"Release him, Shippo," Sesshomaru told his fox son.

"You believe him, Otou-sama?" Shippo asked.

"He speaks without deceit."

"And his scent isn't Naraku's any more – we can all scent him now that his powers are down," Inuyasha remarked.

Shippo had barely noticed it in his fury, but now that he was a little calmer, he too could tell that Byakuya's scent was no longer that hated, disgusting scent of Naraku's that he and his pack had spent a year chasing all over Japan.

He released his grip on him.

...

Kagome was back in the dark. She was a little unnerved to be here again, in this strange space in which she could see nothing, this "holding area" of the well, as Byakuya of the Dreams had called it. But she was calm. She would wait here as bravely as possible, until either Byakuya came for her, or the well tossed her back out.

Just as she had come to that resolution, however, the place seemed to light up, as if the walls were emitting illumination.

"Byakuya?" she called out uncertainly.

But the space that was glowing showed no one else within it. Only herself. And then she saw it – a picture – no, not a picture – a running movie? No, not quite that either, she realised, as it grew larger and filled the room, and suddenly, it was as if she was watching the world through a massive window. A window to the world that was just like her own, except that it wasn't, because the well was somehow _telling_ her so.

This was the world of the first Kagome.

And what this present Kagome saw of it nearly broke her heart.

Her Mama – no, not her Mama, but the first Kagome's Mama – sitting alone in a bedroom, clutching a girl's dress to her heart, with a look on her face that was torn between smiles and tears.

Another scene: Souta, looking as if he was about eighteen years old, being questioned by Kagome's friends. _Where is your sister? Can we e-mail her? Why has no one heard from her all these years? Which country is she living in? Doesn't she ring, or use Facebook, or something?_

Yet another scene: police officers at the Higurashi house, questioning Grandfather, Mama and Souta. _We have received reports from many concerned sources that your daughter disappeared years ago, Mrs Higurashi. Immigration has no records of her having left the country. We need you to answer some questions about her whereabouts..._

_Did you murder your daughter?_

_Did you murder your granddaughter? Or are you holding her prisoner somewhere?_

_Do you know anything about what may have happened to your sister? How old were you when you last saw her?_

Grandfather, distressed and sick, lying in a hospital bed.

Souta, withdrawn and alone, his family under a cloud of suspicion.

_Where is Higurashi Kagome, your daughter? Answer the question!_

Kagome watched the scenes in horror and misery, understanding that the well was showing her what had happened in the other stream of time following the first Kagome's decision to live in the feudal era.

The images faded, and Kagome was left alone in the dark again, crying her eyes out, sobbing furiously for the mother who was _exactly_ like her own beloved Mama, for the loving grandfather and kind-hearted brother who were just like hers, and for how unhappy the first Kagome would surely have been if she had ever guessed what had happened to her birth family.

...

"Kagome!" Shippo yelled, lighting up the holding area of the well with his fox-firelight the second Byakuya transported both him and Inuyasha into this strange dimension.

He raced towards the figure of the girl huddled on the floor of the space, and was relieved beyond words when she looked up at him through tear-filled eyes and threw her arms around him. He looked her over frantically, checking for injuries, looking into her face, kissing her on the forehead, the lips, saying: "Kagome, we're here now. We'll take you home at once. Don't be afraid any more. We're here. I'm here."

But the girl continued to sob her heart out, weeping as if she were in terrible pain.

"What did you do to her?" Shippo demanded of Byakuya, accusingly.

"I didn't do anything to her!" the demon protested.

"Kagome," Inuyasha spoke gently, putting a hand on her shoulder. "What happened? Are you hurt?"

She shook her head and choked out through her sobs: "I-I'm n-n-not hurt. B-B-Byakuya didn't h-hurt me. It's what I saw h-here. K-Kagome's – I mean the f-first Kagome's f-family – the well – the well showed m-me. Th-they're in trouble without... without her."

"In trouble? How?" Inuyasha asked urgently, for the first Kagome's family had been very good to him. It did not even occur to him at this time to realise that this second Kagome now knew about the two streams of time.

She told him: "The police... and her friends... they think her family might have murdered her. B-because she never came back."

"Look, let's get the girl home first, please," Byakuya spoke. "We can talk better outside of this temporary landing place."

"Yes, of course," Shippo agreed.

Byakuya went up to them, told them all to take hold of him, and transported them back out of the well. They found themselves back in the shattered well house, surrounded by wolf-demons who stood down once Inuyasha ordered them to. In another second, they were smothered by the embraces of an exhausted Higurashi family which had been sitting out there in the cold and darkness of night, waiting and praying for their Kagome to return to them.

It was past midnight by now, but nobody wanted to sleep. Mrs Higurashi made tea for everyone, waited till Sesshomaru, Koga and a slightly embarrassed Hachi in human disguise joined them, and then they sat down to hear Byakuya out first.

He recounted to the Higurashi family his reasons for doing what he had done and asked their pardon for giving them a scare like that.

Then Shippo explained to the Higurashis, as concisely as he could, that the first Kagome had come from a modern world like theirs but had split time into two streams with her time-travelling activities and her decision to remain in the feudal era. He and Inuyasha apologised for not having told them this before, as they had thought it would be too confusing.

Kagome then gave her full account of what she had seen in the images that the well had shown her. The account sobered everyone, and all fell silent, desperately wanting to help the Higurashis in the other dimension, but not knowing how.

It was Kagome who finally broke the silence with a softly spoken but very firm statement: "I will help them through the well."

More silence followed which was even more tense than before, until Shippo asked: "How?"

"The well is what bridged time for the first Kagome. I am her reincarnation, and I am her double in this world which is separate from her original world. The well chose to show me the images from that alternate world. Therefore, I am the one who must find a way to make things right for her family."

"How exactly do you intend to do that?" Inuyasha asked.

"With his help," she replied, pointing to Byakuya.

"What kind of help can I give you, miko?" the former incarnation of Naraku asked.

"Tonight, we will rest and I will think," she said. "Tomorrow, you and I will go back into the well, and I will find a way to help them."


	18. Rite Of Passage

**Rite Of Passage**

Shippo looked across the courtyard at Kagome, who was standing beside the Bone Eater's Well in the morning sunlight, looking into its depths as Inuyasha gave her a final briefing about the first Kagome's family. The wellhouse was still shattered, so he had a clear view of the ancient well and the people around it from where he was, near the Go-shinboku tree. The fox demon felt a lump in his throat as the sense of déjà vu nearly rattled his composure.

How many times had he seen the girl who was later to become his adoptive mother standing by the well in the forest, preparing to jump in – either alone, or with Inuyasha? How many times had he waited for her return beside the old wooden casing whenever she went home for a spell? How often had he sprinted towards that small clearing in the woods in time to see her climb out over the top, her backpack filled with food she or her mother had prepared for them?

Then one day, she had been swept into the meidou and had not come back for three years. Although Inuyasha had assured them that he had seen her safely home before the well tore them apart, everyone had always wondered about how she was doing, and if she missed them as much as they missed her. Naturally, Inuyasha had been the most deeply affected by her absence, and all his friends had respected his loss as being greater than theirs. Nonetheless, they had each and all quietly longed for her return through the many moons of separation.

Now, here was her reincarnation and her double in this timeline – the girl Shippo had slowly but surely fallen in love with – standing by the well again, preparing to enter its depths. Would she return? Would something bad happen to her, where none of them would be able to help her? Would she be able to make things right for the first Kagome's family and then make it home to her own time and her own world? What if the well took her back into the past, just like it had transported the first Kagome to a totally different time? What if that then created a third timeline?

Shippo shook his head to clear his mind of all convoluted and negative thoughts. No. He must hope for the very best, believe that all would turn out right, and wish her the smoothest and speediest success. Everything was going to be fine. Everything had to be fine.

He had not attempted to talk her out of this plan, though he had been sorely tempted to beg her early this morning: _Please don't leave my side. Please stay here with me._ But that would have been selfish of him; it would not have provided her with any of the emotional and psychological support she needed. Even her own mother, aching with concern and worry, had refrained from asking her outright not to try this. Her grandfather _had_ pleaded with her not to re-enter the well, but Grandpa was Grandpa, constantly fretting over a thousand things, so his fears were easy for her to smile at – she had known all her life that her grandfather's asking her not to do something had never meant that he would not support her if she went ahead and did it anyway.

Inuyasha was glancing Shippo's way now, indicating that he was done with his final reminders to Kagome. The fox demon approached them, and the others moved away discreetly to give them a last moment of relative privacy.

"You _do_ know what you're doing?" Shippo asked softly, taking Kagome's hands.

"I don't know if I know all the implications, but I know for certain that I won't ever be happy if I _don't_ do this," she smiled gently, her thumbs tracing half-formed lines and circles on the backs of his fingers.

Her eyes were so beautiful, so deep and liquid in the sunlight, that he wanted to disappear into their depths, wanting to be a part of her for the remainder of her life…

"If you don't return in three days, we'll hound Byakuya until he forces the well to spit you back out," he said ominously.

"I think Byakuya's made it quite clear that he has no control over the well. It has been kind enough to allow him a little pocket within its dimensions to move from one place to another, but he's never been able to do anything more with it than that."

"If he's hiding anything…"

"He's not," Kagome said with certainty. "I _know_ he's not. _You_ know he's not. The well had an affinity with the first Kagome, and with Inuyasha, and it let them through its time portals until it closed those passageways for good after your mother went to your world permanently. As I am her reincarnation, perhaps it has an affinity with me as well, that's why it showed me, and only me, scenes from the lives of your Mama's family. It wouldn't have shown me those scenes for nothing; it wants me to act. It _will_ help me act. I will speak to the well once Byakuya takes me into the transit space. I will ask it to send me to the right place and time at which I can be of the greatest help to the other Higurashi family. It will help me to help them. It _must_."

They had gone over all this hours ago, early in the morning, after all of them had had time to rest and think. She was repeating it all to reassure him that everything would be fine.

"Stop worrying," she whispered, going up on tiptoe to kiss him on the lips.

He pulled her close to him and kissed her deeply, savouring her scent and taste, wondering if this would be the last time he would be able to touch her like this. She tasted of purity and love and unselfishness, her spirit brimming with compassion and a powerful desire to do what was good for other people. That kind heart of hers was just like her ancestress' heart – but Shippo could also taste that unique personality of this Kagome which had truly blossomed since she had met him and discovered the wonders and dangers of knowing that youkai existed, and that she herself was descended from them. It was that unique personality of hers that made him want to clutch her to his body forever as they kissed, for _this_ was the Kagome he had come to desire; _this_ was the Kagome he wanted standing beside him as his equal; _this_ was the girl he wanted to make his mate.

Would she come back for him to be able to make her his very own partner?

Slowly, they drew apart. He leaned towards her again to press one last kiss to her lips, then one last kiss to her brow, as if he might drive into her mind the knowledge of how much she meant to him.

Then he let her go.

Byakuya would take Kagome and Inuyasha into the well. In that waiting place, they would remain with her for a while, to see if anything happened. Perhaps Inuyasha's presence would help trigger the well's memories of how it had once freely given passage to a half-dog-demon and another priestess named Kagome.

One final look at her family and friends, then she was gone, carried lightly and easily over the casing by Byakuya and Inuyasha. The others left behind looked into the depths of the well. All three were nowhere to be seen.

Shippo glanced at Sesshomaru. The taiyoukai himself had his own deep concerns for Inuyasha's safety, and was completely silent now not because of his usual stoicism, but because he feared losing his precious hanyou. What if the well decided to take him along with this Kagome, back through time? What if he couldn't come back?

Shippo knew exactly how Sesshomaru felt, and as green eyes met golden ones over the span of the well's mouth, each knew what the other was thinking without having to exchange a word.

…

Kagome stared at the mysterious surfaces surrounding her, Byakuya and Inuyasha in the holding space provided by the Bone Eater's well's magical dimensions. She found it hard to come up with appropriate words to describe this space, which she was entering for the third time in her life. The "floor" she stood on, and the "walls" around her, were solid in the sense that they were supporting her weight from beneath her feet, and did not let her pass through them like air when she reached out and touched them. Yet, they were not solid in the way that she was familiar with concrete, stone, tiled or brick surfaces in her world – when she put her fingers to the "wall' on which the well had shown her the images of the other Higurashi family, it felt as if it was a pulsing, living thing, throbbing not with biological life, but with magical consciousness.

"I don't see anything," Inuyasha murmured somewhere behind her, as he too looked around the space they were in.

"The magic of the well chose to reveal those visions to the priestess when she was alone here, and has certainly never revealed any images to me before," Byakuya said. "Perhaps it wants to show them only to her."

"Inuyasha was a friend to this well for many years," Kagome remarked. "He passed through it often with my ancestress, and sat beside it for more hours and days than he can remember, waiting for her every time she went away. Perhaps it will also respond to his presence."

"Perhaps," Byakuya agreed politely.

"Try speaking to it," Inuyasha suggested to Kagome.

"What?" she asked, wondering if she had misheard.

"Talk to the well. Communicate with its magic. Ask it what it wants you to do."

She stared into his golden eyes, looked at the forward set of his triangular ears, and saw that he was perfectly serious.

"Really? I should talk to the well?"

"Try it. You have nothing to lose from asking."

She felt rather self-conscious about talking to an inanimate structure housing magical portals. However, she was the one, possibly more than anybody else besides Inuyasha, who strongly wanted to do something to help the family which was so much like hers. Indeed, now that she thought about it, they were not just _like_ her family, but they were in fact her ancestors. She was descended from the first Kagome, which meant that the modern-ancient priestess' family was also her family.

That renewed surge of ownership of the problem helped her shed her awkwardness about speaking to the well. She pressed her palms gently to the magical wall in front of her, and spoke out clearly but respectfully: "I am Kagome, descendant of the first Kagome. I want to help the family she left behind in the time I cannot reach without your help. Please show me how I can help them. Please show me a way. You did not reveal their plight to me for nothing – please let me help!"

Inuyasha added his voice too: "And hey, if you remember me, I was the half-demon who kept jumping in and out of you – the one you carried back to my own time after returning my Kagome to hers. The one who has always visited you in gratitude over the centuries because you brought my Kagome back to me at last. If you remember that you helped us be together, then please help me and our descendant be of some use to my in-laws."

"Please show us the way," Kagome pleaded, communicating the strength of her feeling through her voice, her palms, and the priestess' magic she tried to send out through her hands to speak to the well. "Take us to a point in time where I can be of the most use to the first Kagome's family."

A stillness came over the temporary space in the well as the three of them waited and listened. Just as Inuyasha was about to speak again, it happened.

A wash of power flowed over them, rippling the air and stirring their tresses the way Inuyasha remembered each time he had leaped through the magical passage of the well.

"Inuyasha…?" Kagome whispered uncertainly.

"It's opening up for you," he said, as he sensed with his hanyou powers that the wave of magic was rippling _past_ him and Byakuya, but was gathering Kagome up into its midst. He felt torn for a moment, sad that he could not see his in-laws one more time, but happy that his descendant would have the opportunity to save them from their difficult situation. "Go, Kagome – go and do what you were meant to do! Tell them I've never forgotten them, and that I think of their Kagome every day of my life."

"Should I–" Kagome began to ask, only to be removed from his presence in the next second, leaving him and Byakuya standing in the space, staring at the featureless walls surrounding them.

"She's gone," Inuyasha murmured.

"She is," Byakuya affirmed. "I do not sense her presence anywhere within the portals or holding spaces of the well."

"It took her away without your having to be the intermediary," Inuyasha remarked to him.

"Yes, so it will also return her without my having to intervene. Let's go back up and give her the three days we promised her."

Inuyasha nodded, put a hand on Byakuya's shoulder, and let the other demon transport them back out into the shattered wellhouse, where the glow in Sesshomaru's golden eyes told him all he needed to know about how worried for him the taiyoukai had been.

Shippo's green eyes, however, were quite different in their expression. He looked resigned that Kagome was not with them, proud at the same time that she had obviously succeeded in communicating with the well, and fearful that perhaps the well would never return her to him.

…

In a moment of last-minute panic, Kagome had wanted to ask Inuyasha if she should specify a certain moment in time for the well to take her to, or if she should just leave it to the well. But he and Byakuya had faded before her eyes as she was snatched into a fabulously long and beautiful portal. And once she looked around at the tunnel of magic she was passing through, she forgot all about panic, fear and worry.

The portal seemed to be made of glowing light, and tiny sparkling flashes like stars in the sky. Was this what her ancestress and Inuyasha had seen each and every time they had leaped into the well? How wonderful! She felt no more of the weight of concern about the little details she had filled her mind with last night and this morning – she simply knew that the well was taking care of things. It would set her down in the first Kagome's world at a time that was just right for her to help her family. Then she would follow her heart, and use her head when she needed to, once she came face-to-face with the family of the famous priestess.

The portal bore her gently through space and time, bridging the severed timelines. At the end of that long tunnel, when she found herself set down on her feet without so much as a jolt, at the bottom of the well, looking up at the roof of an intact wellhouse, she knew that this was one of the important things she had been born to do.

Without hesitation, without fear and with only love and compassion in her heart, the second Kagome Higurashi climbed out of the Bone Eater's Well, opened the wellhouse door, and began walking towards the house of her ancestors.


	19. Bringing Comfort

**Bringing Comfort**

The house was exactly like her family's house. Even some of the footwear on the rack by the door looked identical to the footwear of her family. But there were tiny differences too, like the number of potted plants in the garden, and the condition of the paint on the door.

Kagome slid the front door open, and glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall. She observed that the year shown was nearly a year ahead of her own timeline. According to the chronology she and Inuyasha had worked out, it meant that this would be about a year or so after the first Kagome had gone to live for good in the feudal era.

This would be about the time when probing questions would have been asked by friends who had not heard from Kagome for quite a while, but probably no trouble with the authorities would have developed as yet.

"Thank you, Bone Eater's Well," Kagome whispered. She was glad that the well had carried her to a point in this other time-stream when the other Higurashi family was not yet going through any serious hardship. If she acted wisely and covered all the angles, then there was a real chance that none of the difficulties the well had shown her would ever develop for this family.

She could smell the delicious scent of beef stew cooking in the kitchen, then she heard familiar footsteps moving towards the front of the house where she was. A familiar voice called out: "Sota, is that you? Why are you home at this time –"

In the next moment, her mother – no, the first Kagome's mother – was standing before her, wearing the very same apron that was her own mother's current favourite. The gentle look on this mother's face transformed swiftly into a look of astonishment and delight.

"Kagome!" Mrs Higurashi cried, rushing forward and throwing her arms around the girl she thought was her daughter.

Kagome hugged her back, not knowing what to say – how to break the news that she was not the girl she was missing. "I…" she began in a whisper. "I don't know how to say this…"

"What is it?" Mrs Higurashi asked, half-laughing and half-crying, leaning back to look into her face. "What is it you don't know how to say, Kagome? I've missed you so much. How did you… how can it be… I thought the doorway of the well was closed…"

Kagome looked at the lady who was so exactly like her own mother that her heart was breaking for the unhappy truth she would have to reveal to her in a few moments.

"Higurashi-san," she said, summoning her courage. "My name is Kagome Higurashi, but I am… I am not…"

Mrs Higurashi was looking very deeply into her eyes now, searching their depths, and an understanding was dawning on her, as it could dawn only on a loving mother. "But you are not my daughter," she whispered, finishing the sentence for her, and releasing her.

Kagome bowed respectfully to her ancestress, holding the bow for several seconds before straightening up and speaking words she had thought she would not have the heart to utter: "Higurashi-san, I am your daughter's descendant and reincarnation. I come from a different timeline – one that was formed when the first Kagome went into the past. The time she went to diverged from the time she came from, and the two timelines have travelled separately since then. No one has ever been able to use the well as a portal since she left your side, but just a few days ago, things happened that allowed me to pass through, for a special purpose."

"So my daughter Kagome…"

"In my timeline, my ancestress Kagome lived many hundreds of years ago. Higurashi-san, your daughter lived a long and happy life. She was deeply loved by her mate, Inuyasha, and by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She has many descendants, some who have followed their youkai heritage, and others like my family line who have followed their human heritage. She is known among all our family as the greatest priestess that ever lived."

Mrs Higurashi nodded, her eyes bright with tears. She fought to govern her emotions, but in a few seconds, she was weeping, holding her face in her hands.

"I'm so sorry," Kagome uttered, starting to cry herself. "Please forgive me for making you sad. It was not something I wanted to do, but I had to come here to tell you–"

"No," Mrs Higurashi said quickly, wiping her tears briskly with her apron. "No, I am the one who should apologise. You have travelled so far to tell me what no one else could ever tell me – to put my mind at ease about my daughter's fate – and here I am embarrassing you with my tears."

"Please don't say that," Kagome gasped. "I should have put it better – I never say things tactfully enough – I'm such a careless speaker."

A little laugh in the midst of her tears bubbled out of Mrs Higurashi, who said: "You are so very like her. She often accused herself of speaking hastily, without thinking things through – but in fact, what came from her mouth was always truthful and good. Sometimes her words were raw, but they were never deceitful, and never malicious. You are the same. Are you really descended from her – from me?"

"Yes I am. My family never knew for many generations that we were descended from Inuyasha too. We only knew of the first Kagome because one of her great-great-granddaughters, Michi, married a priest and wanted to renounce her youkai ancestry. It was only recently that we finally learnt more of the first Kagome's history, and her life with Inuyasha and their children."

Here, Kagome reached into the backpack she had brought with her, and took out the sheets of paper on which Inuyasha had recorded the names of Kagome's children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and more.

"These are records of your daughter's descendants in my timeline, Higurashi-san. They are written in Inuyasha's own hand. And here is a long letter from Inuyasha himself, along with a photograph of himself that we just took yesterday, telling you all he hopes you would want to know about your daughter's life. He misses all of you very much, and he misses his mate greatly."

Mrs Higurashi took the precious pieces of paper from her, and clasped them to her chest. "Thank you for bringing these wonderful words and records to me, Kagome," she smiled.

"It is the very least I could do. I also have here…" she reached into her backpack again. "I have here a painting of Kagome done by Shippo – you have heard of Shippo, the fox-kit?"

"Of course I have!" Mrs Higurashi laughed. "Dear little Shippo – Kagome always spoke very fondly of him. Is he still around?"

"Yes he is, Higurashi-san. He is all grown up now. Youkai live so long, that even so many hundreds of years after Kagome first told you of him as a child-fox demon, he is still considered young for a youkai."

"And he painted this picture of Kagome," Mrs Higurashi gasped softly, carefully unrolling the piece of cloth, fragile with age, on which Shippo had captured Kagome's likeness in paint, standing tall and proud, holding her archer's bow. "It is a beautiful painting."

"Shippo tells me that he painted it when his Mama – that was what he eventually came to call your daughter – was about thirty years old."

"She looks gentler, calmer and stronger here. She looks contented, and at peace with her life."

"Shippo also recently drew from memory on a computer what he recalled of Kagome with her children, and Inuyasha, in the village where they lived. This is a printout of his graphic."

Kagome handed this to Mrs Higurashi too. For the first time, the mother of the first Kagome Higurashi was able to see a modern artist's very realistic rendering of how he remembered her daughter with her family.

"Oh, I never knew I had such adorable grandchildren!" Mrs Higurashi cried, covering her mouth with her hand. "Kagome looks so happy with them! And Inuyasha – oh, Inuyasha already looks so much more even-tempered and mature here in this drawing. He looks much calmer in the photograph too. Has he become less hot-tempered?"

"I understand from all who have known him for a long time that he is a much calmer person now."

Pointing at the drawing, Mrs Higurashi asked: "This first little child's name would be…?"

"That is Hikage. He is the eldest. The girl is Tamatsuki, the second-born. Shirakori is the third – he has the purest white hair. Hikaru is the youngest, and the one with the most human blood in him. The other children took as long as youkai and half-demons do to mature, but Hikaru matured like a normal human child, and he gave your daughter grandchildren and great-grandchildren before she passed away of old age."

"It is from him that you are descended, then?"

"Yes."

"And you were named after my daughter."

"Yes."

"You are also her reincarnation?"

"I am."

"Then can I ask you for a great favour, Kagome?"

"Anything, Higurashi-san."

"If it will not offend you greatly, may I please hold you in my arms for a while? And will you please call me 'Mama', just for now?"

Starting to cry again although she had fought so hard to keep her tears under control, Kagome nodded furiously. "Yes, of course! You are exactly like my own Mama – exactly! Indeed, considering how similar the timelines are, one could say that you _are_ my mother!"

Mrs Higurashi stifled a sob as she drew Kagome tightly to her, and Kagome whispered: "Mama…"

She had done something like this for the surviving children of the first Kagome – let them embrace her and imagine that they were holding their mother again. Here, she was letting the first Kagome's mother embrace her, and imagine that she was holding her daughter again. In both cases, Kagome knew with her head that she was being "used" as someone else – and yet, the swelling feeling of joy in her heart on both occasions spoke deeply to her soul, for she knew without a doubt that she was doing as good a thing as she possibly could. If being a substitute for someone else was always this meaningful and wonderful, then, Kagome thought, she wouldn't mind doing more of it.

Mrs Higurashi hugged her for at least a minute, stroking her hair and back, giving her all the warmth and love she had missed giving her daughter in person for more than a year. Then she drew back at last, and her face was bright with peace.

"Thank you, my dear."

"If only I could do more."

"You have done more than I could ever have hoped. Now, you said the well allowed you through for a purpose?"

"Yes. This is going to be difficult for me to say, and perhaps hard for you to hear, but please bear with me as I relate what the well showed me."

Kagome then explained what she had seen in the well the first time she had been alone in its holding space. After recounting the troubling scenes she had been shown, she continued: "You see, I don't know if such things might already have happened in your timeline, but the well has chosen to bring me back to this earlier time to do something about it. Or if the well was only showing me what would happen if I didn't do something. I don't know enough about how time works when it is split like this. But whichever case it is, I am here to either prevent trouble from coming to your family, or to rewrite the future by being placed a little way back in the past. I know it's confusing – but do you know what I mean?"

"Yes, I think I do. Perhaps I am as confused as you are about how time works when it is divided like this, but I do grasp the main of what you are saying. People will start to ask where Kagome is, and we will be unable to produce any evidence of her continued existence in this world. We will be in trouble for that."

"Yes. So if you permit me to, I will do what I can while I am here to see as many of your daughter's friends as I can, to try and give some reason why I will not be able to communicate with them again. I will speak to a lawyer, and ask if it will be legal for me to choose to disappear, as it were. I will tell everyone I manage to speak to that I will also not be communicating with my own family, so they will not be able to find out my whereabouts from you. That way, I hope that no questions will be asked of you about your daughter from here on."

"Will that work, do you think? And consulting a lawyer – we'll need money for that…"

"Don't worry. Inuyasha and Sesshomaru – you may remember Kagome mentioning Inuyasha's older brother? – have amassed a lot of resources and wealth over the centuries. They've sent me over here with as much money as I will need to do what I have to do. I believe the money should be the same as yours? Our worlds are really very similar – even the people populating it. I think they're mostly identical."

Kagome and Mrs Higurashi took out a few banknotes and compared them, and found that they were indeed identical.

"My friends are Eri, Yuka and Ayumi, and there's a boy named Hojo."

"It's the same!" Mrs Higurashi exclaimed. "Those are the names of Kagome's old school friends! Are you dating Hojo over in your world?"

"Actually, in my world, I am with Shippo."

"Oh, how wonderful!" Mrs Higurashi laughed. "Hojo is a very nice boy, but I always felt that he and Kagome were… how do I say this…"

"Not fated to be together?"

"Exactly."

"It was the same with me."

"All right. Let us now plan out what we should do. How much time do you have here, Kagome?"

"Three days. Then I must return to my family."

"I would not want your family to miss you as much as I have missed my daughter, so we will not keep you a day longer than you were given. When Grandpa and Sota come home, I will speak to them first about who you are, then we will discuss further all that ought to be done during your stay with us."

Kagome nodded, feeling a strong comfort within her soul that the wheels were properly in motion, and she could fulfil her mission.

"I think I hear Grandpa outside now. Kagome… would you – would you like to use my daughter's room while you are here? I haven't altered it at all since she left, other than to change the bedsheets and curtains, and dust the place…"

"I would be honoured to."


	20. Tying Up Loose Ends

**Tying Up Loose Ends**

Kagome's fingers reverently traced the ancient, faded etchings on the oldest sections of the Bone Eater's Well casing. As she touched the markings, she looked up with a smile of delight at the Higurashi family – Sota and Grandfather were with them now – and said to them: "Inuyasha told me that the first Kagome carved brief messages into the wood once in a while – she did not want to damage the casing too much and cause it to wear down faster over time, but she also hoped that some of the messages would reach you, even if your timeline had become different from hers. It looks to me like they _did!_"

"You see?" Mrs Higurashi whispered to her father-in-law and her son. "I _told_ you that those markings I noticed a few months ago had never been there before. I _knew_ they were made by our Kagome."

"I thought this etching with my name was the one Nee-chan and I had made when I was four years old," Sota murmured in wonder as he stared at the words carved into the wood. "But I remember now – we were being naughty and etched our names over on that other side of the well, not _this_ side – we never scratched the well again after you sat us down and explained to us why we shouldn't damage things, Mama. So Nee-chan really carved this – from long ago…"

Sota and Grandfather were still torn between studying the etchings and studying the face of the girl who knelt beside them by the well – the girl who was the very image of the one who had left them one day and never returned.

"The well is magical – it bridges time – it was able to transmit my ancestress' messages even when the timeline that followed her life in the feudal era became a different timeline from your era," Kagome told them. "She never forgot her first family, all her life. And Inuyasha said she remembered that this side of the well was the side that would get the most light through the front wall of the wellhouse. So this was the side she used."

_Mama… Grandpa… Sota… I am well… Life is good… I miss you… My life is whole…_

"Thank you, Kagome – both of my Kagomes," Mrs Higurashi said, caressing with her fingertips the words of love that had reached her through time.

The second Kagome smiled back at her, and at the old man and young man next to her, and understood at once that this world was starting to heal.

…

Things had gone more smoothly than either Kagome or Mrs Higurashi had anticipated with regard to Grandfather and Sota. They had feared disbelief, accusations of deceit and a generally bad reaction. However, the first Kagome must have been blessing them from across time and space, because there had been no chaos, no anger and no distress.

When Grandpa Higurashi stepped indoors after his trip to the herbal medicine shop – and later in the afternoon, when Sota came back from school – Mrs Higurashi had carefully explained to them what had happened, and had done her best to communicate who it was who was upstairs in Kagome's room.

To her relief, the males of the family were calm, and more or less grasped the matter of the different timelines intellectually. Still, it was astonishing for each party concerned to see how identical the other was to the one or ones they knew from their own world.

"Is it really _not_ you, Kagome?" Grandfather had asked in wondering disbelief, his old hands cupping the young girl's face gently. "How can it not be you?"

"Ojiisan," Kagome smiled kindly. "You are exactly like my own grandfather."

Upon Sota's returning home from school, more wondering words and kindness emerged, as Kagome said: "My little brother is named Sota too – and he looks just like you."

"Nee-chan," Sota said in a hushed voice. "I _can_ call you Nee-chan, can't I?"

"Of course you can."

Grandpa and Sota had sat down together to hear what had become of their granddaughter and sister. Like her mother, they both cried over the fact of her death hundreds of years back, but laughed to see the paintings and computer illustration of her, happy with her family, happy with Inuyasha.

Then the Higurashi family – and the girl descended from their Kagome – sat down to plan out what she could do to prevent them from getting into difficulty because of questions that could never be answered outside of the family concerning the fate of the first Kagome Higurashi.

…

Kagome spent the whole of that late afternoon sitting in a cafe with Eri, Yuka and Ayumi, whom she had rung up and asked to meet. Fortunately, they were all still living in the city because they were at the University of Tokyo, just like her own friends were. She had compared notes with Inuyasha yesterday, and with Mrs Higurashi and Sota today, about what experiences their Kagome had had with her friends, so that she would not slip up when pretending to be her ancestress.

In the end, little of it mattered, as her friends were so thrilled to see her that they only wanted to know what she had been doing, and where she had been, and if it was true – was she _really_ married to that bad boy they had met years ago at her home? The mixed-race one with platinum hair and amber eyes? Where had she been living? Why hadn't she rung, texted, e-mailed or written?

"Yes, I really am married to him. He's grown up a lot. He's not that same bad boy any more."

"But why haven't we heard from you at all?" Eri asked. "We've asked your mother, and your brother, and they said they were not in touch with you either."

"It's true. No one – not even my family – has been in touch with me this past year. And I'm afraid it will probably continue to be the case from now on."

"But _why_?" Yuka cried, not understanding.

"I thought it might be easier to explain things to the three of you, considering that you were present at the shrine four years ago, when I disappeared for a few days…" She had been told of that episode by Inuyasha early this morning – when he gave his account of how he had managed to yell through the meidou to Kagome's family when the Bone Eater's Well vanished, and they and her friends had shouted back to him. She had also just heard Mrs Higurashi's account of it from her side – the family's terror when Kagome's means of returning home disappeared into thin air, and the hope that came with hearing Inuyasha's voice promising that he would find her and bring her home.

"Goodness, yes, I remember that dreadful time," Ayumi gasped. "You never did want to explain it to us all through high school."

"I couldn't. It was not something I fully understood myself. I can only say that I was somewhere else, trying to get home. I did, eventually, with _his_ help. It was something of a spiritual experience."

"Spiritual – yes, exactly. That's _exactly_ how it seemed," Yuka nodded. "How could an ancient well just disappear into thin air like that, and then come back out of nowhere? How could we hear that boy's voice as if it was coming from inside the ground? I still don't understand."

"Neither do I," Kagome said with perfect honesty. "I just have to say that it's partly related to that experience – that spiritual experience – the reason why I wish to withdraw from the world with my husband. We went through something life-changing together, and I… you could say that I made a vow – a vow to leave everything I've known all my life and embark on a different life where I will no longer be in touch with the ones I knew before. At least that's the plan. If things change in time, well, we'll take those changes as they come. For now, though, I really am here to say goodbye."

"Kagome…?" Ayumi intoned curiously. "Are you joining some kind of… cult group… or something? Is it some kind of weird religious order that requires you to live in seclusion?"

"Well, yes and no," Kagome replied a little uncertainly, wondering if it was not too much of a stretch to consider the world of youkai as a _cult group_. "I suppose it's something along those lines, but I can't really elaborate, and I promise you from the bottom of my heart that it is nowhere near as sinister as any of those cult groups that get strange ideas in their heads and then harm lots of people with poison gas or bombs, or who commit suicide, or anything of the sort. I swear."

"So you're going to withdraw from the world for religious reasons?" Eri asked doubtfully. "That is so unlike you."

"Well, her grandfather _is_ a priest," Ayumi reminded Eri.

"True. But still…"

"But it is the way it must be. I cannot be in touch with any of you again, unless things change. I just want you all to know that you have been wonderful friends, and I would never have made it through school without your support and help."

"I still don't understand!" Yuka insisted, a little angrily.

"I know. But please try to respect my decision. My mother and all the rest of my family and friends will not be in contact with me either, so please do not ask them where I am. They won't know."

"Your husband – that bad boy – he's the one who put you up to this, isn't he? He's from some cult, isn't he?" Yuka demanded, quite upset.

"No, it's my decision. It was always my decision."

"This is all so strange…" Eri remarked. "But…"

"But if it is truly your decision, we will respect it," Ayumi stated at last. "I can't say I am at all happy to hear that I will probably never be able to speak to one of my friends again, but if this is the way you must live your life for reasons of your own, we will respect your choice."

"Thank you," Kagome replied, with genuine feeling. "Thank you so much."

"Will you at least try to call or write sometimes?" Eri asked.

"I can't even promise that, but we shall see." She and Mrs Higurashi had discussed the possibility of her writing a few general letters while she was here, so that the Higurashi family could read them to her friends every few years if they called.

"Not even an occasional letter?"

"I daren't promise, Eri."

…

The next morning, Kagome called on Hojo and several of her other old classmates and former teachers still living in Tokyo, saying that she would be going away for religious reasons, to a place where she would not be able to communicate with anyone.

A couple of her old teachers asked her suspiciously if she was doing anything dangerous – or if she was trying to tell them that she intended to commit suicide. Kagome gasped at the suggestion – she had not considered the possibility that someone might think she was going through a pre-suicide farewell ritual!

"No, no, no!" she assured them. "No, I intend to remain very, very much alive. It's just a religious vow I made. It's secret. I cannot really say more."

Hojo was rather upset by her goodbye and bewildered by her reasons for it, but he took it better than she had hoped. After all, this Hojo had not had the privilege of keeping Kagome in his life from high school to university. He had lost her immediately after school, heard of her marriage to someone from another country, and had emotionally begun to leave her behind from that time.

It was therefore not too hard for him to accept her farewell, for he had just begun to date a girl from university, and had a view of the future that did not require Kagome Higurashi's participation in it, even though he thought of her from time to time.

Kagome wished him all the best, and parted from him on good terms.

In the afternoon, she took the money Inuyasha had given her, and went to consult a lawyer.

"Is it legal for me to want to sever all contact with my family and friends, and never communicate with them or with any of the other people I used to know? I want to withdraw from the world for religious reasons."

"I don't see why it should be illegal, provided you are not planning to assume a false identity for criminal reasons, or do anything against the law from your place of hiding," the lawyer said. "In fact, you don't need to consult a lawyer if you merely wish to become a hermit."

"No, but I would like to leave everything as tidy as I can for my family, and not leave them a mess to deal with later. Can you please draw up a document stating my wishes so that anyone who asks can see that it is my choice, and not that I have been imprisoned or murdered or anything of the sort? And can you please help me draw up my will, to say that I wish to give all my possessions and anything I may have by way of finances – savings accounts and whatnot – to my mother, with immediate effect? I wish to give it all up and change my name and never be contacted again."

"This is a rather strange decision from someone as young as yourself, Miss Higurashi, but I can draw up a document or two that would make it possible for your mother to execute what estate you may have in whatever means she sees fit, without anyone having to wait for you to die before touching any property or finances you have. I cannot create a document that will command the rest of the world to leave you alone, but I can reflect your wishes and your will in it, and leave no doubt that you wish to give power over all your material resources to your mother."

"Thank you so much."

"You are _not_ planning to die, are you, Miss Higurashi?' the lawyer asked seriously, peering at her from over his spectacles.

"No, no, no – I hope to live for a very long time yet!"

"Hmm."

"Do you think you could have the documents drawn up by today?" she asked with a smile. "I'll pay you in cash – lots of cash."

"Why are you in such a hurry?"

"I just want to spend the whole of tomorrow with my family, before I leave."

…

"I'm sure all that I've done will forestall most difficulties," Kagome remarked to the Higurashi family the next day, over breakfast. "But it still seems like so very little."

"It's already tremendous, everything you've done," Sota assured her. "I can tell you I've had some awkward questions asked by your friends this past year – I mean, by my sister's friends. I've not known how to answer without sounding like I was hiding something. Now, at least I can tell them honestly that I don't know any more than they do what's happened to you – I mean, what's happened to her."

"But if only I could find some way to return occasionally, just to show that I'm alive…"

"No, Kagome," Mrs Higurashi said. "The Bone Eater's Well has already done us all this great favour by letting you pass through from your world and your time to ours. Based on the fact that it shut its doorway after my daughter went to live with Inuyasha for good, I believe it would not intend to keep that doorway open. Surely it would not want to risk the splitting of any more timelines, if another girl were to travel back and forth between different times and worlds. You must stay in your world. I know what it is like to miss a daughter badly. I would never want your mother to suffer what I have suffered, if something should ever go awry, like when Kagome was trapped in the place she called the meidou. You must always remain in the same timeline as your own mother."

"You are as kind as my Mama," Kagome smiled as she took another spoonful of the breakfast rice porridge. "And your cooking is just as good."

"I'm only glad I can nourish you with my cooking the way your mother does!"

"I am grateful, and my mother will also be deeply grateful for your care. But I still feel strongly that there must be something more I can ask of the well. Something more that I can do."

"Kagome, please relax and rest today, and just spend the time telling us more about my granddaughter's family, and about yourself, and about Inuyasha and Shippo," Grandpa Higurashi said. "You have done so much these two days past, it's time to just sit here with us and tell us all you can."

Mrs Higurashi and Sota nodded. Sota was taking the day off from school, to spend it hearing more about what this Kagome knew of his sister's life.

So she told what more she knew, and what she herself observed of Inuyasha, Sesshomaru, Shippo and Kagome's children. Inuyasha's letter and the list of Kagome's descendants, and Shippo's painting and drawing, were taken out and looked at over and over again. Kagome told of how even the first Kagome's adopted child – Shippo – was included in the list, telling them that he was as much a part of the family as her biological children were.

"So you're dating your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great et cetera grand uncle?" Sota asked with a raised eyebrow.

Kagome blanched and held up her hands, palms outward. "Oh dear, no. When it comes to Shippo and me, we just think of ourselves as, erm, very distant cousins."

"Wow. I would never have guessed that my sister's reincarnation would have such an interesting love life."

"Sota!" Mrs Higurashi chided, but with a helpless laugh. "Apologise to Kagome for that!"

"No, it's quite all right," Kagome said, chuckling. "He's not the first to remark on the strangeness of Shippo dating his mother's reincarnation."

As she spoke of Shippo and thought of him, Kagome realised with a jolt how very much she missed him. It was almost a physical pang that she felt right there under her ribs. She wanted him to be with her, holding her in his arms as she wrapped her arms around him, inhaling the pleasing scent of his rich, red hair and demon-pale skin.

Mrs Higurashi looked kindly at her and asked softly: "You're missing Shippo, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am."

"Tomorrow morning, you will see him again."

"I will."

So they talked the rest of that day and half the night, then in the morning, Kagome got her things together, as well as some things that the Higurashi family wanted to give to Inuyasha and Kagome's children, and to the other Higurashi family.

They walked her out to the Bone Eater's Well, and helped her climb into it, her backpack bursting with the gifts and letters they had entrusted to her.

She waved goodbye, pressed her palms to the side of the well, and spoke to its magical power: _Please send me home to where I belong now – but before letting me out at the other end of your portal, please may we have a word in private? I just need a few minutes alone in your magical dimension to discuss something of importance. Please._

The magical force of the well buffeted her, gathering her up in its heart the way it had when it brought her here three days ago. And as the family of the first Kagome watched, the second Kagome Higurashi disappeared into the portal of the well, and was gone.


	21. Coming Home

**Author's Note, 27 Jan, 2013:** Please forgive me for taking so long to update. I started a new job six months ago, and before that, spent about five months battling a very unpleasant supervisor in my previous job – and it's all left me too drained to write. The new job gives me no rest. I'm already thinking of resigning from it!

**Coming Home**

The youkai were the first to know when Kagome returned – their noses and ears told them the girl was back. But her mother was only a second behind in realising that her daughter was home. She knew it through some mysterious maternal instinct, even before registering the pricking-up of Inuyasha's ears and the widening of Shippo's eyes.

Shippo was out of the kitchen and at the repaired well house in a flash, Inuyasha bounding out after him, and Mrs Higurashi and Grandpa running after them. Sesshomaru and Koga moved at a more sedate pace, content in knowing what their senses were assuring them of – the girl had come back, safe and unharmed.

Shippo looked into the well, saw where Kagome was standing, and jumped in to land beside her. He gazed into her upturned face and saw that she was tired from lack of sleep – she must have stayed up half the night talking to the other Higurashi family – and her delicate shoulders were weighed down by a backpack absolutely bursting with whatever was inside it. But there was an unmistakable glow in her eyes which told Shippo immediately that she had succeeded in doing everything she had set out to do.

She had crossed time and achieved her aim.

Filled with pride in her and the delight of seeing her in one piece after three days, Shippo wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight while at the same time relieving her of some of the weight the backpack was putting on her frame. He took the opportunity to breathe in her scent deeply and enwrap himself in her spiritual aura. He felt her arms go around him, felt and heard her sniff his neck and his hair, and knew without a doubt that even if she had changed the world for the Higurashis on the other timeline, she had not changed her feelings for him. He was still hers, and she was his.

Taking care that she was securely held in his arms, Shippo leapt lightly out of the well with her, slipped the heavy backpack off her shoulders, and let her go unencumbered to her mother and grandfather.

"Oh, Kagome!" Mrs Higurashi cried, letting go at last of all the worry she had held inside her for days – would the well take her daughter to the right place and time? Would she be in any danger in the other timeline? Would the other family believe her? Would she be held back by the first Kagome's friends who might think she was about to harm herself, or be questioned by the authorities?

"Mama, Grandpa, I'm fine. Everything's fine. Everything went well – really, really well," Kagome assured them, hugging her mother tightly. "The other Kagome's Mama – she was exactly like you – she cooks like you, even – and she's just as kind-hearted and good – but she's not _you_, and I missed you! And Jii-chan, you should see the other Grandpa – he's identical to you."

"I thank them from the bottom of my heart for being good to you," Mrs Higurashi whispered, stroking Kagome's hair. "I can tell that the other Mama fed you well, at least!"

"Oh, the food practically never stopped landing on my plate, even when she was asking me a thousand questions about everything and everyone in this timeline," Kagome laughed, before turning to Inuyasha.

"It's good to have you back here," the hanyou said, trying not to show how the memories were pouring back of _his_ Kagome and all their trips back and forth through the well.

"Inuyasha-sama, your in-laws are fine, and I believe they will stay that way," the girl who was descended from him stated, smiling. "They think of you and my ancestress every day – she's only been gone a year or so over there – and they've now found the messages she used to leave for them on the side of the well. They have your letter, and the painting, the photograph, the list of your descendants, and they are thankful that their Kagome had such a full and happy life with you and your children and grandchildren."

"How exactly did you ensure that they would be fine from here on?" Inuyasha asked. "Did you do as we planned, or did you have to change some things as you went along?"

"Why don't we talk inside?" Sesshomaru suggested, sensibly determining that there was no purpose in standing around the well any more now that everyone was sure the girl was fine.

"Yes, let's," Kagome agreed cheerfully. "That way, I can also show you all the things the other family wants you to have!"

"You mean all the things that are splitting your backpack's seams?" Shippo asked, holding up the bag.

"And they'd have put even more in if I hadn't convinced them that this was more than enough," Kagome laughed, slipping her hand into Shippo's free hand, as they all turned towards the house.

...

Inuyasha pored over the album of photographs the other Higurashi family had given him. An album full of pictures of Kagome – his Kagome – in her teens, and as a child. He was very quiet as he studied them, and when he looked up, there was a brightness in his golden eyes that spoke of tears he did not want to shed in front of everyone.

"They shouldn't have given me these – they should have kept them for themselves – I took their Kagome away from them and spent all the rest of her life with her," he said worriedly.

"Inuyasha-sama, these are copies," the Kagome of this timeline told him. "I made very certain of that."

"So they have the same pictures with them?" Inuyasha asked, looking a little happier.

"Yes. They made many copies of the first Kagome's pictures after she left them, fearing that they might lose the originals."

"Good, I wouldn't want them to lose any more of her than they already have."

Inuyasha had also been most affected by the letter the Higurashis had written to him. Each of them – Mrs Higurashi, Grandpa and Sota – had penned something to him, telling him how they missed seeing him and Kagome, but how grateful they were to him for giving her everything wonderful that she would never have had if she had remained behind with them.

To each of the three surviving children Kagome had borne, and to Shippo, the adopted son, the Mrs Higurashi of the other timeline had written letters. The letters were not sealed, and Mrs Higurashi had told Kagome that the children's father – or fathers – were free to look at them. Shippo was given his without anyone else reading it, but Inuyasha and Sesshomaru looked over the three letters for the part-demon, part-human children. Words of pure love and hope filled each letter, along with a special memory of their mother for them to treasure.

_My first grandson, Hikage, _

_I have only just learnt that I have grandchildren, and that you were the first child born to my daughter, Kagome. I see how handsome you are in that painting I have just been given – how very like your father Inuyasha you are. To you, I wish to give the memory I have of my firstborn child – your mother – just after she came into the world. She was a perfect baby, so beautiful, so full of health and life. She cried out strong and loud when she took her first breath, but she quietened down quickly the moment the nurse put her into my arms for the very first time. She snuggled against me at once when I held her close to me, as if she knew immediately that I was the one who had carried her inside me for nine months, and that I would do all in my power to keep her as safe as I could for as long as I was given..._

_My dearest granddaughter, Tamatsuki,_

_In that painting I have of you as a child, I see how much you look like your mother when she was a child. The colour of your hair and eyes are of course like your father's, but your face – oh, your pretty face – is just like your Mama's was when she was as small as you were in that picture! I hope you will agree that there is a strong resemblance between you as children when your father shows you the photographs I have sent to him. In this letter to you – perhaps the only letter you will ever have a chance to receive from me – let me tell you about the time when your mother was four years old, and took it into her head to help me with the cooking of dinner one evening..._

_My third grandchild, Shirakori,_

_You are clearly the most strikingly beautiful among your siblings. It may sound odd to you for me to write this, as your picture shows me a splendid hanyou child with brilliant silver hair and golden eyes, who looks pure inuyoukai, but there is something in your face that reminds me of my husband, your maternal grandfather. I always thought he was the handsomest man I had ever seen, and I knew as I spent more time with him that he was the kindest man I knew – the best husband, and the best father of my children that I could ever have dreamt of having. With you, I want to share the memory of a spring day when your mother was three years old, and her father took her out to the park near our home to look at the sakura blossoms... _

To the Higurashis of this timeline, they had sent blessings and charms from their shrine, with a penned message: _Although we understand that our shrine and yours are identical, we, your ancestors, send our very best hopes and wishes through these charms, and pray that the kami-sama who span time and worlds may keep your family and all that is sacred to you in safety, abundance and wholeness._

There were gifts of silk stoles from Grandfather Higurashi and Sota to everyone they had heard of from their Kagome and the second Kagome in this timeline. That grandfather had a collection of them from which he would select good designs for important visitors and guests, and he had just raided the collection for these descendants and relations of his, telling Sota that they would share the cost of replacing the items over time. Even Koga, whom Mrs Higurashi remembered her daughter telling her about, received a stole.

The gifts distributed and the letters read, Kagome was now able to go into detail about what she had done to ensure that the Higurashis in the other timeline would not get into trouble over the apparent disappearance of the first Kagome.

"Do you think I overdid it?" Kagome asked, a little concerned, after she had described her discussions with her ancestress' friends, old classmates, teachers and the lawyer. "Do you think they'll try even harder to hunt her down now?"

"Well, if they do, they'll fail, and they will have to eventually accept that she has chosen to leave them behind," Inuyasha replied.

"Besides, there wasn't much else you could have done," Shippo added. "It's not like you could say something vague like 'I'm leaving the country for good', because if anyone were to check later, there would be absolutely no record at customs and immigration of Higurashi Kagome ever leaving Japan – and then there would be even more questions."

"I wish I _could_ have taken her passport and left the country," Kagome sighed. "Then there would have been a record of her leaving and not returning. Except that I would have had no idea after that how to get back in and return to the well without passing through customs – it's not like I would have had the help of someone like Byakuya over there to vanish from one place and reappear back at the shrine, you know."

"So there were no youkai that you sensed with your growing powers, over in that timeline?" Sesshomaru asked.

"No, none that I could sense," Kagome replied. "I can only assume that at some point in the history of that timeline, youkai died out, or went deep into hiding, or left Japan for some reason. But in _this_ timeline – the one that is the result of my ancestress leaving her family to start a life with Inuyasha-sama – youkai have thrived _because_ of her. The first Kagome knew what her world was like, what the coming world would be like, and she prepared her youkai family and friends to survive well in such a world. In her original timeline, history did not have a Higurashi Kagome, and perhaps because of that, demons didn't fare so well. I am quite sure that with my newfound priestess' powers, I would have felt it if any demons had been around in Tokyo, even if they were concealing their nature."

"So we're all here today because of the first Kagome," Shippo mused aloud. "And none of us would have made it into the present age if she hadn't travelled through the well and split the timelines."

"I'm glad my ancestress made the choices she made," Kagome said. "But I thought it such a shame that her courage to begin a new life in another time should mean that everything which came after her would be cut off forever from all that made her who she was to begin with, which is why I asked the Bone Eater's Well for a favour..."

"You asked the well for a favour?" Inuyasha echoed. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I asked that even if it would not allow anyone to travel through it any more so as to prevent any more dividing of timelines, would it please let us send things like letters through, so that at least we could stay in touch."

"And what did it say?" Inuyasha asked, quite forgetting that the well never _said_ things.

"It didn't actually _say_ so in words," Kagome replied. "But I didn't really hear a 'no', you know..."

"So..." Inuyasha began before trailing off, not knowing what her not hearing a 'no' meant.

"So maybe we can try putting letters in – maybe in a few days, when the well's had enough time to mull over my proposal."

"Do wells mull?" Sesshomaru asked in perfect seriousness, never having had any direct experience of time travel through the Bone Eater's portal, or any form of communication with it.

"I think they do," Kagome answered, equally seriously, although Shippo could not quite manage to hide his own smile at the genuine curiosity in his taiyoukai father's voice. "I really think it's thinking about my request."

"Then we'll have to give it time to consider," Shippo said.

"Hmm," said Sesshomaru, still not convinced that mental processes of any sort were taking place in a hole in the ground.

"Don't mind him," Inuyasha chuckled to the others as he nudged Sesshomaru in the ribs. "He's just worried that if the well turns into a post office, he'll now be obliged to write a thank-you note for his very beautiful, white silk stole."

Sesshomaru glared at Inuyasha, but Kagome giggled, Koga snorted, and Shippo laughed out loud before shutting himself up at once when those intimidating golden eyes smoothly shifted their focus from the hanyou beside him to the disrespectful son in the chair across from his.

...

"I thought he was going to eat you," Kagome giggled to Shippo, when they were alone in her room upstairs.

"So did I," Shippo whispered, as they sat side by side on the edge of her bed. "But there've been countless occasions over the centuries when I thought he'd absolutely _kill_ me, and he never did."

"Your fathers love you."

"I don't think any of us have ever really consciously thought of it as _love_," Shippo mused. "I think I – and my siblings – know it in our heads that they do, because of all the protection, guidance, discipline and even affection they've always given us. But when we think of parental _love_, we really just think of our Mama."

"There's nothing quite like a mother's love," Kagome agreed. "I saw you opening your grandmother's letter to you downstairs – what did she say to you?"

"She said that out of all her grandchildren, I was the one most familiar to her, because my Mama often spoke of me to them whenever she was at home. She said that from the very first time Kagome told her about me in the feudal era, she thought of me in some way as her daughter's first child, and now, that idea she had of me has actually come to pass, because Kagome and Inuyasha did adopt me even before they had Hikage. She addressed me in her letter as the first grandson of her heart. She thanked me for all the times I helped to save her daughter's life, for all the times I brought her cheer, and for all the smiles that she says she knows I gave her. She ended by saying that she believes I will also bring smiles to you from now on, and she truly hopes we will have a life together that is full of joy, with no regrets."

"We will," Kagome stated without hesitation, and with no uncertainty or fear in her voice. She looked directly into Shippo's eyes as she spoke, and he saw nothing but clarity and love when he looked back at her. Her journey across time seemed to have burned away the lack of confidence and the tremulousness that had held her back all these years from discovering what she truly wanted for herself, and now, she was looking with full assurance at the one she had decided that she wished to spend her life with.

Shippo felt his will merge and flow eagerly and seamlessly with the current of her desire, and he pressed his mouth to hers in a kiss that communicated to her the message: _We will, and I would never want any less than to have you beside me as we raise a family of our own, and if I have to move worlds to find a way to keep you with me forever so that you will be able to watch our children grow up, I will move all those worlds to do so._

Kagome had come upstairs on her mother's orders so that she could have a good, long, daytime nap to make up for her lack of sleep last night, so Shippo eased back from the kiss though he wished it would go on for hours, and pulled her gently from to the edge of the bed to the middle of the mattress, where he made her lie down and close her eyes.

"I'll kiss you again – and again – when you wake," Shippo whispered. "But right now, you need sleep, and I'm here to make sure that you get as much of it as you need."

"Are you going to mother me like this for the rest of my life?" she murmured.

"Do you want me to?"

"I wouldn't expect any less."

"You couldn't stop me even if you tried."

"Well, I won't. I think I'm quite enjoying this."

"Shhh. Go to sleep, and when you wake, we'll write the first of our letters together to my grandmother, and we'll tell her that we're going to make all her hopes for us come true."

"You sound sure that the well will deliver our letters."

"I think it cannot but be moved by a heart as pure as yours, the way it was moved by my Mama's desire to be with Inuyasha after three years apart."

"Mmm," Kagome mumbled sleepily as her tired body began to succumb to the deep rest it needed. "I was afraid _I_ wouldn't see _you_ for three years if something went wrong... missed you so much while I was over there..."

"Missed you too," Shippo murmured with a smile, as he snuggled up against her back and held her against him.

"Stay with me..."

"Always."

She slept, and he joined her in sleep though he did not need to, so when Mrs Higurashi and Inuyasha opened the door an hour later to check on them, they found them curled up together in dreams – the girl who had crossed streams of time to put things right, and her protective fox who had had the courage to let her go, but whose arms around her promised that from now, he would hold her forever.


End file.
